Update on My Brother, Joe Brandenburg

Friends and family and anyone who has been praying for my brother Joe.............

Let me back up a bit to fill in a gap for those who don't know what has happened.

Got a call at 6 pm Thursday that my brother, 18 mo younger than me (he will be 54 in April) had a massive heart attack.  We traveled til 3 am to get to the hospital near Cincinnati (Edgewood, KY).  He was very unstable as fluid filled his lungs and he was bleeding after the cath.  He awoke at one point and thrashed and fought the 4 or 5 nurses who were trying to hold him down.  They had no choice but to paralyze him so they could strap him down and work with him.  They forced ventilation air, lots of it, to help force the fluids down and out of his lungs.  They also gave him 180 cc's or mg's of lac ix (sp??) whatever the measure would be.  The bleeding ended up being from his nose.  They were not worried about it considering everything else.  They also had a pump working with his heart to help his heart rest.  I don't understand most of what was going on, but his vitals had begun to improve by the time we arrived at 3 a.m.  They kept improving through the night.  On Friday the Drs started weaning him off of the meds and machines just by small amounts.  For example, instead of 100% ventilation, they brought it down to 80% and 20% was him breathing on his own.  He was still paralyzed when I left at around 3 p.m.  The paralysis will be one of the last things they "reverse."  They say there was very minimal damage by the heart attack.  He actually had the heart attack while they were checking him at the hospital and they acted quickly, which is probably why so little damage was done, praise the LORD!

Tim and I decided that since Joey had been improving consistently that we would return home.  But, having not slept since Wednesday night, we were BEAT!!!  So, after we left at 3 p.m. on Friday, we went to our daughter's house in WV to spend the night and get some rest before traveling the next 4 hours to home.  Needless to say, we don't really remember our heads hitting the pillows last night!  I don't even have any idea what time we went to bed, but it was not late.  And we were up at 7:30 feeling so refreshed!  We hung around with Liz and the family for awhile before heading on home at 11 a.m.  We got back home at 4 p.m.

We (Tim) had called the hospital this morning to get an updated report on Joey.  They told him there had been no change!  I knew that could not be true, but decided to just wait and call again tonight.  I just called and the nurse gave me a few statistics, but I asked if Rachel, Joey's wife, was there and he handed the phone to her.  Rachel was able to give me "the rest of the story!"

The pump that was helping Joey's heart (so the heart could rest some) was removed today and his heart is doing just fine and pumping on its own with no problems!  PRAISE the LORD!!  The oxygen was lowered to 40% today, which means he is breathing 60% on his own and his vitals are still great!  They took him off the heparin, lowered the dopamine and saline.  Another x-ray proved that his lungs are even clearer than yesterday's xray-!  The fluids are STILL coming off, too!  He opened his eyes 3 times today.  The doctors said he is fighting the paralysis.  Rachel said he seemed agitated, so she went to his bedside and stroked his cheek and talked with him and told him everything was OK and that she was there and wasn't leaving.  She said tears began to run down the side of his face, but he relaxed and went back to sleep.  Tomorrow they are going to begin taking him off the paralysis medicine to see how he does!!  PRAISE the LORD for answered prayer!!!

THANK YOU, everyone for lifting him up before the LORD!  Please continue to do so!  I'll keep you posted!  Don't bother to send him flowers yet.....let's wait until he is at a point of being awake and able to see the results of people thinking of him!

Eventually, I'll get back to my regularly scheduled program of layouts!