The family of our hero Reese Burdette are asking for your prayers at this time as Reese prepares for some more major surgeries. Her Aunt Laura shares the following on Facebook:
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Purple and Prayerful Friday – this is our wish.
We ask for everyone to deck out in your favorite Team Reese shirt or whatever purple you can find and say some extra prayers for Reese…As many of you will recall, about 12 days ago, Reese’s medical team clamped off the pedimag machine that Reese has been dependent on for CO2 exchange (the lung support she has continued to need since her VAD removal in December). The past 12 days, the pedimag hasn’t done anything to help support Reese, rather it stayed hooked up only as a backup in the case that Reese needed more support. Reese hasn’t needed that support at all and has continued to steadily improve the last 2 weeks. Tomorrow, is the big day…Reese will undergo a surgery that we have all wished and prayed for for a long, long time. She will enter the OR room for what we hope will be the last time for quite some time. Tomorrow morning around 9am, Reese will have the cannulas removed from her for good! This is the biggest step toward moving home we could possibly hope for. We hope this procedure is a smooth success and that doctors don’t encounter any troubles. During this OR procedure, Reese will also have a hemodialysis line put in so that she can continue dialysis for the remainder of her stay at Johns Hopkins. The surgeons will also be placing a PD catheter in her abdominal region in the hopes she can have dialysis from the comforts of her home when she is released from Johns Hopkins. We hope and pray that doctors can get this procedure done with as little pain as possible for Reese, for this will be something a little new for her as it is in the stomach area. Tomorrow might not sound like much to many of you – but it is a big, big day for us and one we are super excited about. With this exciting news, there is always a little sadness too…for the last 617 days, Reese has had both a nurse and a respiratory therapist with her 24/7. The respiratory therapist have been assigned because of the ECMO, VAD and Pedimag…because she doesn’t need these machines anymore, it also means she has outgrown the need for her respiratory therapist. While this is a great problem to have, Reese and our entire family are quite saddened that so many of those RT’s won’t be sitting with us in her room. So many of them have become such good friends. We have seen several of them through entire pregnancies, some have gotten engaged and then married and we have loved sharing in their lives. We are so sad to see them go – but will look forward to pop-in visits each day. Reese will shed not only the need for her RT’s but a huge machine that has followed her around for so long. Losing this machine will make her so much more mobile and more comfortable. In my mind, I envision a bird freeing itself from a tangled net…and soaring like never before…for I truly believe Reese is going to take off and we will all find it hard to keep up with her. Reese’s ultimate goal has been to get herself back home amongst her friends, family and beloved dogs and cows…and to spend just a few hours with her, it is plain to see that she knows she is nearing this goal and dream of hers. Today, she is all full of smiles, deep belly laughs and lots of practical jokes. She is so light-hearted and has such a free spirit these days. She talks daily about the things she wants to do when she gets home…and we can all finally see that those things will happen sooner rather than later. So our family would like to ask that each of you sport your purple gear tomorrow as a reminder to stop and pray for Reese and her surgical team, and wear your purple as a reminder of all of the miracles God has performed in sweet Reese. God has used Reese to teach so many doctors, nurses and therapists…He has used Reese to help this medical staff know how to help others. Our family considers ourselves so lucky to have Reese in our lives, to have been touched by the kindness of others and to have witnessed God’s healing touches and many miracles He performed on Reese. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank each and every one of you who has helped to carry our family through such difficult times of ups and downs. None of us are naive to think we could have made this journey on our own – we know God carried us and each of you prayed for us and God heard each and every prayer. We thank you and hope you continue on this journey with us…Pray for Reese
