Brandy’s story begins on January 26, 2006, when she was thirty years old and pregnant with her second child.
After she began to cough up blood, she went to the hospital and learned she had double pneumonia.
Brandy was transferred to Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, Texas where a team of doctors awaited her arrival. Brandy was not told how sick she was but they delivered her son a month early and then she was put on a ventilator and in a drug induced coma. She had both ARDS and sepsis and had to be trached. Her doctors did not have much hope and at one point, Brandy ‘died on the table’ but was revived.
Brandy’s illness was the usual ARDS roller coaster but eventually, Brandy awoke, staring at a plain white wall that she knew was her hospital room but she did not know where she was or what had happened. Her legs felt paralyzed. But gradually, Brandy was able to move to rehab to relearn everything. She spent fourteen days and then was sent home in a wheelchair.
Brandy’s mother cared for her while her husband cared for her son. Brandy did not see her son for three months.
Brandy has been able to get off most of the medications but still takes some for nerve damage and depression. She has trouble breathing and feels like she cannot get enough air.
Brandy lives in Texas and currently has two children, 11 and 3 years old.
