The Bickers family needs all the prayers they can get. Olivia Renee Bickers their middle daughter is in the ICU fighting. When they went to the UVa basketball game together the night before, they never could have dreamed they would be here today. Long story short Olivia woke up like any other morning. Within a few minutes her heart was beating crazy, she was dizzy, went to lay down, then called her mom. Upon arrival of paramedics her oxygen was in the 80's and they transported her to UVA medical center. After a slew of tests it was determined she had pulmonary embolisms (blood clots) leading to both sides of her lungs and clots in her heart as well. They determined that her heart was working way too hard, she wasn't oxygenated well, and the clots were too big to dissolve even with blood thinners. The teams of doctors working with her decided she needed a procedure to try to dissolve the clots. There was a risk she wouldn't tolerate the procedure well because there was already so much stress on her heart. Unfortunately she didn't tolerate the procedure well and she needed to be put on an ecmo machine. This bypasses the heart and lungs to try and give the meds time to work on dissolving the clots. She is also sedated and on a ventilator. The next 48 hours will be the hardest. They are optimistic that with her age we will have a positive outcome. They just finished doing her neurological exam and that was normal. This is a good thing. Her brain wasn't deprived of oxygen. As long as nothing changes with her they will stay the course overnight and reassess in the morning. Please pray for her and the doctors and nurses that are taking care of her. We need all the prayers we can get. We will post updates as they come!

Update: We have spoken with all the doctors this morning. Not much has changed. She is still critical, but is maintaining as they expect. The plan is to stay the course today with some more tests this evening. Thanks everyone for everything. Keep those prayers going.

Olivia is an incredible young lady who is a full-time student at Radford University and an employee at Maybelle's Market.

Update #2 : They have been able to remove the ventilator. Unfortunately she is a lot of pain that they are struggling to get under control. Ordering more tests and trying to figure it all out. Even though it is hard to watch her like this, her being able to talk and breath on her own is a blessing.

Update # 3: We have run into a complication. She is still off the ventilator which is great. However, she is in an extreme amount of pain. It appears she has something called compartment syndrome in her arm. The pressures are very high causing excruciating pain. They are leaning towards heading to surgery to relieve those pressures. I will update when we know more. Please keep praying!!!

Update # 4: So they have decided surgery is needed and needed now. She is being prepped as we speak. Unfortunately that means she will have to be put back on the ventilator, without a plan at this time as of when that might be able to be removed again. So we have taken 1 step forward and 2 steps back. This has been an unforseen setback. They hope she will be done within the next 2 hours. I will update as we know more.

Update # 5: Olivia has made it through surgery. They were able to open up her arm and relieve the pressure. There was a significant amount of pressure in the arm (more than they had anticipated). They plan on going back into the arm on Sunday to evaluate muscles, remove any tissue that may have been compromised, and assess her arm from the inside more extensively. We are waiting to go back in her room at this time. They are cleaning her up and returning her room to an ICU room. She was too critical to move to the operating room, so they turned her ICU room into an operating room. Pretty amazing. She is heavily sedated and on lots of pain control. We are hoping for an uneventful night. The teams of doctors will meet again in the morning to see what tomorrow's plan is. I will update when I know more. Please keep praying we are not out of the woods yet.

Update # 6: Olivia was able to rest peacefully through the night. That was such a blessing. Dr's have decided to keep her sedated and calm today because yesterday was so hard on her and her body is exhausted. If she can rest peacefully they hope her internal healing will happen faster. Unfortunately her blood count did drop and they felt she needed a blood transfusion. Hopefully this will help her and she won't need more. If she does we are prepared to do another transfusion. Please keep praying we still have so many hurdles to get through. I will post again as I know more. Thanks so much for everyone's support. We couldn't get through this without all your love.

Update # 7: I know it has been a while since I posted. Today has been a very peaceful and restful day. Olivia has stayed the course that they had planned and was able to rest comfortably. The plan for the night is to continue the same path. She is scheduled for surgery to open up that arm early in the morning. So there will probably be some preparations during the night for that. I will post tomorrow after surgery to let everyone know how she is doing. Just remember everything takes a long time so it may be hours after 7 before I post an update. Keep praying we still have a lot of hurdles to get through.

Update # 8: Today has been a very fast paced and hectic day. Sorry I haven't been able to update sooner. Everything went as planned this morning and she had her arm surgery for the second time. It went better than expected and the tissue and muscle they were worried might no be viable had begin to heal and look much better. Because of this they didn't have to remove much and were able to close her arm. They had worried there might need to be multiple surgeries and that the arm would need to be left opened to try and recover. That is such a blessing. They did an echo and determined that her heart was doing better. Once they determined that they decided to try a trial of decreasing the ECMO machine and seeing if she could maintain. Her heart was able to hold its own and they decided to move forward with the surgery to get her off the ECMO machine. They have to take her to the operating room for this surgery. Just moving her from her room to the operating room takes at least 30 minutes. Once they get her settled in the operating room they will turn off the ECMO machine and make sure her heart is able to do the work without that support. As long as that is the case they will remove the ECMO machine and do the surgical repair. She will have drains in and hopefully be back in her room between 6 and 7 if all goes as planned. I will update everyone as soon as I am able. Remember nothing moves quickly here. Keep the prayers going!!! We love you all.