The Edmonds Family

Latest Update:

The great news is that the latest chest x-ray and echo shows that the valve hasn’t gotten worse. Leaking is minimal, giving her time to get strong enough for surgery.

The not so great news is that surgery has been postponed in order to get her stronger. The mini-thoracotomy (heart surgery through the ribs) is out of the picture. Which means she will need to have open heart surgery in order to repair the valve. Goal is to leave hospital in order to go to rehab or go home in order to get stronger, preferably home. This is because oncologists are worried about Becky not having had treatment in a while. Her oncologist doesn’t want her to go to a long term care facility because getting treatment, while there, would be difficult. They also want to check and make sure that the tumor hasn’t grown. In order to check, oncology wants to compare previous PET scans with other tests to see if anything has changed. Doctors are concerned about low albumin levels (albumin is a protein essential to healing). So she will be starting IV nutrition this evening, in order to giver her that boost. She will start taking blood thinners, eating more, and getting up and walking more so she could potentially go home in the next couple of days. Oncology also wants her to do an aggressive rehab for 2-3 hours in order to show that she CAN go home. They also noticed that more fluid has accumulated around one of her lungs and are recommending that she have a catheter inserted in order to avoid the painful process of getting a thoracotomy in order to have it drained.

Specific things to pray for:

1 Thanksgiving that the valve continues to be stable.

2 Cancer has not grown any more.

3 We are able to go home and Becky can resume treatments, for the time being.

4 Becky will get strength up by increasing her nutrition intake.

5 Becky can endure PT in order to get stronger and more confident in herself.

6 They can successfully insert a catheter to help the draining process of her lung.

7 She will be able to have a successful open-heart surgery.

Those of you who know Becky Edmonds know how much of a fighter that she is. For those of you who haven’t heard already, Becky has had some recent health complications that very recently has led to her having some mini strokes. The Edmonds have been on a roller coaster the past few days. One day she’s been fine and acting normal, the next day she’s either non responsive, or completely out of it. They have a team of doctors that are doing their best to figure everything out, but right now it’s all up in the air. Becky, Kyle, and Brian really covet your prayers right now. Thank you all! Any amount could help them on this journey.