Help Support Trent Brewbaker's Funeral Expenses

Hey everyone,

I am saddened to be here fundraising for my family to help support Trent Brewbaker's Funeral expenses. Trent suffered from Cystic Fibrosis from birth. This past week he lost his final battle and is now resting easy. Because Trent had this chronic illness from birth Trent was not able to have life insurance to help cover these after-life expenses. Our family cannot thank everyone enough for all of the support through this process. Below is the full story and updates from Trent's long fought journey..

Trent just turned 30 on October 16. He has been a cystic fibrosis warrior his entire life. At one day old he went into surgery for a bowel blockage and had bowel removed and he has had to endure numerous surgeries and procedures since. His young life was filled with breathing treatments and medicines just to survive another day.

January 21, 2019, He was gifted a new life with the gift of two healthy lungs. He was able to do things he never was able to do before. A true blessing. Breathing treatments were replaced with anti-rejection medications but it was well worth it. He was doing great until April 2022 when he was t-boned in a car accident. The accident broke a rib and in turn he got pneumonia. At that point his lung function began to drop and he began to reject his lungs. Months ago we began taking steps to try and mitigate the lung damage and stop the chronic rejection he was experiencing. We also started planning for a retransplant in the future.

Unfortunately, October 18th he took a turn for the worse. His blood oxygen dropped to 80 and his CO2 levels were over 75. Normal range is 23-29. He was quickly put on life support and flown to Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania(HUP). The transplant process was fast tracked at that point.

The doctors believe that he may have had a reaction to a medication that they originally thought would help his lung function and slow the lung disease progression to try and buy him more time. Although that may be the case he lost more lung function and is well below 20% of lung function at this point. He is no longer on a ventilator but he now has to use oxygen continuously and uses a bypap machine.

Doctors have talked with us that the retransplant will be a much harder procedure and much more difficult recovery because they will be battling scar tissue. We fortunately will have the same surgeon. We couldn’t be happier because to us he is a superhero. We have complete faith that he will be able to perform another successful transplant.

Part of the transplant process is having a care team. I am his primary support person and need to remain with him during the transplant process. We also will need to stay in Philadelphia after the transplant while he recovers and goes through his physical therapy. They average this to be 4-9 months.

He is still in HUP and has completed the evaluation process for the transplant list and now we just wait.

I am staying in Philadelphia. Mike is home working and keeping things as normal as possible for Dominic and Tre.

His job been amazing and has told us that they will take him back whenever he is ready. Unfortunately, he does not get paid during this time.

We know how hard things are for so many people right now and are blessed that so many people have asked us to set something up so they could contribute. For those that can not, please just share and/or forward to get the word out.

Thank you everyone for supporting us in so many ways!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mike and I are at the hospital with Trent today. We are very thankful for everyone that has reached out and helped our family.

Trent is still heavily sedated. Unfortunately, because he has been on so much sedation and the paralytic for a week, they are having a difficult time getting him weaned off. He is going through withdrawals and he gets very hypertensive. They just switched to oral medications to try and help with that as the try and continue to wean the sedation. As you can imagine, he gets agitated as he becomes more aware. He is still on the ventilator and has the large cannulas in his neck for the ECMO. They are talking about a possible tracheotomy to avoid anymore vocal cord damage.

When they are able to wake him up he does open his eyes and he has responded by squeezing hands and wiggling his toes. So far, he hasn’t been that awake when I am here but he has opened his eyes for me.

We are still praying lungs come soon.

This thanksgiving we are very thankful for all of you, our family and Trents team that is working extremely hard to get him exactly what he needs, and mostly the family that will give Trent his gift of life.

Trent received his 2nd double lung transplant February 13th 2022.

Feb. 13 update 2: He is done!! He had a lot of bleeding and some complications. he will be closely monitored until he is out of the critical state. Good news…Lungs are PERFECT!!! So we are now on the road to recovery!! #teamtrent #beepbeep

Feb. 13 Update 3: We knew going into this transplant that there was a higher risk. There was no option because with out transplant he would’ve been gone in November. We are still in the waiting room and have not seen Trent yet. He had substantial complications. He had excessive bleeding which was expected to some degree but not what he has had. He has received a lot of blood which has caused his kidneys to shutdown. His potassium levels are extremely high and has caused concerns for his heart. He is now on dialysis that they have had to run through the ECMO machine because he does not have veins large enough or without clot to get the catheter into. Because of the excessive bleeding he also has a build up of blood in his chest that is putting pressure on his heart. He will have to go back to the OR so they can clean out the chest and hopefully see if there are any spots they can add sutures too and what is just a coagulation issue. Please keep him in your prayers. He is still in a critical state. #teamtrent

Feb. 14 Update 4: Trent went back into surgery last night and then again this morning. They are still trying to control the bleeding. He is bleeding everywhere in his chest. Each time they finish he looks good but it starts bleeding again and builds up in his chest. All of his numbers look good and his potassium levels are starting to drop. He is starting to produce urine so they are hopeful his kidneys will recover once all of this other stuff stabilizes. The bleeding is the hurdle we are focusing on today. There is a 50/50 chance he will need to go to the OR again but the longer between times means it is starting to heal correctly. They have no intentions on trying to wake him at anytime today. However, in the near future they will wake him to make sure that none of these measures have affected his brain.

Feb. 14 Update 5: Things are trending in a positive direction. As of 10:45pm, the bleeding has slowed down. His drain tubes are now draining the way they are supposed to drain and his chest is not expanding from excess blood. They had to make some changes to the dialysis and ECMO this afternoon but as of now that is working properly too. Hopeful we will have a quiet restful night.

This afternoon, Luke, Trent’s nurse asked if I wanted to see his chest opening. I wasn’t too sure I could handle it. He was very supportive and walked me through it. Trent’s chest is still open and has a sterile cover over it. I could see the stitches around the incisions and the best way to describe it would be an open large shark bite. Although I couldn’t see his heart, I could see it beating. Nothing could make me more happy on Valentine’s Day than to see my sons heartbeat. I am extremely happy that Luke was so kind and patient to give me the strength to see that.

I have tried to take pictures of things we have experienced through this time so Trent can see all he was strong enough to overcome. He is a truly the toughest person I know. Todays picture was very difficult. I had to take two pictures and splice them together so I could get all the equipment in one picture!!

All in all today was a better day and I know tomorrow will be even better! Thanks for all the prayers and support. He is not out of the woods but he’s definitely working his way out!! #teamtrent

Feb. 15: Today is a better day. He has lost some fluid but is still 30 liters too many. The bleeding has appeared to stop. He needed one bag of blood early this morning and that was all. He is oozing from all over but that is a good thing to get rid of all of the excess fluid. First thing tomorrow he will go back to the OR to get his chest washed out and hopefully they will be able to close the chest a little bit more. They started to reduce the paralytic today and he is tolerating things well. Still no nerve response but he is still highly sedated. They will also see if they can get a direct line for the dialysis so they can take it off the ECMO. If all continues to go well they will take him off ECMO, within the next week. Hopefully by the weekend they can start waking him up so they can make sure his brain function is still unaffected.

I went down to the blood drive today. It sure doesn’t make up for all the blood he has gotten but it’s a start!! #teamtrent

Feb. 24: Well, its been a minute. My intent was to hopefully put together a video but…its been a rough week. There has been so much to take in and process. After 4 months things actually hit me hard this week. I apologize I didnt give any updates but I was just trying to get my head around what was happening and how to navigate it all.

Trent went to the OR 2 times for bleeding after the initial transplant. On Monday, he was doing amazing and they were able to get him off ECMO, close his chest, put a trach back in and have a direct dialysis line. Tuesday was a pretty calm day of just getting him weaned of of medications and pulling fluid off. It was clear the dialysis was working much better being on its own and not attached to ECMO. His face was actually looking more like him. Wednesday was even a better day. He was able to wean off a lot of sedation. He was waking up and responding to questions. He wasn’t able to move his arms a lot yet but we at least knew he was aware and responding appropriately. He was able to get up out of bed and sit in a chair. He even gave me smile. It may have just been out of annoyance because the nurse kept telling him to do it for me! In Trent fashion, he likes to please! Yesterday, things turned. His stats were lowering dramatically. They did a CT scan and saw that the attachment site was not healing correctly and there was a significant hole. They did a bronchoscopy which confirmed the diagnosis and they saw a lot of secretions showing there was infection. So even though he was on the ventilator, most of the air was going outside the lung. They were hoping it would heal itself. However, last night he went back to the OR to be put back on ECMO with the hopes resting his lungs will help him heal quicker. They have him on antibiotics but are still waiting on cultures to make sure he is on the best possible regimen to combat this particular infection. Today they did another bronch. It is possibly a tad better not much. However, the other side is very weak as well. Trent needs more prayers than ever!! We need this hole in the right lung to heal quickly, the infection to go away and the left side attachment to stay strong and heal correctly.

Prayers have kept us going this long and it is very clear Trent is blessed. His purpose is not done. He has touched so many lives and continues to still be changing lives even in this situation. Another story for another day!!

Anyway, as always…we can’t be more thankful to have so many people praying for Trent and our whole family. We will keep on keeping on!

#teamtrent #prayerispowerful #lungtransplantjourney #cfsucks #CFmom #OrganDonation