For those of you who do not know me, I'm Randy and LuAnn's daughter.

On Sunday, October 20, LuAnn tripped while carrying a boiling pot of water. That water soaked into the carpet where she had fallen and lay in it until my dad came in and got her up. She burnt the right side of her back all the way down to her butt, both butt cheeks, a spot across her stomach, some on her upper breast, and a good portion of her right arm along with splatter spots on her legs and left arm. These big spots were all 2nd-degree burns.

My dad brought her to the emergency room where they flew her to the cities to the burn center. Since she got to the hospital, she had been throwing up a lot. Over the course of a few days, she started to become very confused and she started to get sick. In her best interest, they had to intubate her to protect her airways. This was only supposed to be for 2-3 days.

Around 10/25-10/26, she contracted pneumonia from aspirating her throw up. They started her on antibiotics and on Sunday, 10/27, she took her first turn downhill. The pneumonia had turned into E. coli in her lungs and then made its way to her bloodstream. Her kidneys gave no warning and just shut off. Her liver was also showing signs of shutting down. Sunday, 10/27, we were told my mom was in multi-system organ failure. They put her on continuous dialysis. She was supposed to go in for surgery on Tuesday, 10/29, to clear the dead tissues but on top of everything else, her platelet count (which helps your blood clot) dropped critically low and she needed platelet transfusions. I believe over the course of a few days she had 2-3 transfusions. Because this level was critically low, they couldn’t safely take her to surgery Tuesday, 11/29.

During the week, she started to show signs of improvement and by 10/30 or 10/31, her kidneys were doing great and they could stop continuous dialysis and go to intermittent dialysis. While this was all good news and she was starting to show signs of improvement, all her burns had turned into 3rd-degree burns.

As the week went on, she kept slowly progressing and by 11/7, she was finally able to get the breathing tube out! Our 2-3 days intubated turned into 2 weeks. Everyone was so happy for it. It was definitely the positive we all needed and we thought we were finally on the up. Saturday, 11/9, was her best day by far. She was alert, trying to communicate with my dad and me, and doing great.

Sunday, 11/10, marked 3 weeks in the hospital. My brother and sister-in-laws (Nick, Taylor, and Tia) came up to visit since she was extubated and we all thought it was going good. At 3 pm on Sunday, right before they were going back to see her, my dad came out to the waiting room and told us she had started to throw up again really bad. They had to re-intubate her because she wasn’t protecting her airways. We sat in the waiting room for an hour or 2 while they cleaned my mom up and what we thought was just getting the breathing tube in. Her body went into shock and they were struggling to keep her blood pressure up. At one point, she was on 3 different blood pressure medications just to keep her okay.

My dad and I stayed until 7 pm on Sunday, 11/10, because she seemed stable-ish. At 10:36 pm, I got a call from the hospital saying my mom had taken another turn for the worse and it would be in our best interest to get to the hospital immediately. Nick, my dad, and I arrived a little after midnight while they tried to keep her stable. The ventilator was doing 80-90% of her breathing, her blood pressure was horrible, the average was 138/38 with a MAP of 53. She was receiving 100% oxygen. Her lab work showed her kidney levels were starting to get elevated despite her making urine. Her body wasn’t exchanging her oxygen and carbon dioxide properly so her pH level in her blood became too acidic. On top of all this, her red blood cells kept disappearing. She had no signs of internal or external bleeding. Her blood was just disappearing. By Monday morning around 6, she had already gone through 3 blood transfusions.

Over the week, nothing seemed to be getting better or worse. She was able to come off all blood pressure medications which is great but all other labs haven’t shown signs of improvement. On Thursday, 11/14, her wounds on her back looked yeasty and too moist so Friday she had to go in for surgery to address those. It is Saturday, 11/16, we know she made it out of surgery but are waiting for the doctors to update us on how it went.

She is going to be in the hospital for a long time yet and is definitely not out of the woods and is still considered very critical.

My dad is beside himself and tries to go see her when he can but with both of them being on a fixed income it is hard. It’s a 3-hour round trip to visit for him. I live in Indiana and make the drive every 4 days to be with him and my mom and to make sure all the bills are taken care of.

Any little bit would be a huge blessing to him so he doesn’t have to worry about gas to go see her. If you would like to donate but not through GoFundMe, my husband has all the other payment methods, just let me know! My dad and our whole family appreciate everyone.