Verna Corbett in Intensive Care
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 7:05PM News on Verna Corbett journal
Update September 30, 2009
Today Verna is in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville, Florida. She has now been diagnosed with Septic Shock (Septus) as a result of complications from surgery on September 21, 2009. This has been an eventful day as they night before when I (husband Blair) left her she was pretty stable. Her white blood cell count doubled over night and she was not urinating enough so they felt some bacteria was possibly after her kidney’s. In Septic Shock patients can deteriorate losing one organ after another in no defined order. They are aggressively attacking the infectious bacteria in multiple ways while monitoring all of her organs more closely, including her heart. Currently she is on at least 7 iv’s and is well sedated and restrained due to being on a ventilator.
People all over the world are praying which we are extremely grateful for. We see and feel God’s presence everywhere. Doctors are amazed at her strength and alertness even while deeply sedated. She loves her doctors and main nurses in ICU. God is doing a work in both of our families as he draws in relatives on both sides that have been distant for years. This is a great comfort and we pray it continues well past this ordeal and time of testing. My Brother Emmanuel, and 2 dear pastor associates I know in Ghana, west Africa; Verna’s and my mentee in Australia and others young people we assist that have faced serious abuse that turn to us for encouragement, strength, support and comfort from distant parts of the U.S., are all praying and holding us up as well… proof that Ark of Hope is indeed alive and well in cyberspace.
I will post more as I am able and text or email those I can. If you check back on one of our sites you will be able to watch news updates. www.arkofhopeforchildren.org or www.giveitakiss.com and Facebook, etc. We will email those on Ark of Hope’s email database and text those I can keep up with. I/we, my wife and large tribe of 15, are all praising God in this storm. Ours and Verna’s strength continues as we know who is our strength in times of trouble. We covet your continued prayer support. For now Verna is stable again. Bacteria like this is unpredictable but we are full of faith that all will be well.
Pray for our ministry, Ark of Hope For Children. Our financial situation has become quite bleak at times and this is yet another of them. Verna, myself continue to take no pay, as we have for the last 8 years, but we are now unable to make the property payment on the 80 acres intended for the sibling care campus which is just a small part of our planned ministry, but the one that is financially strangling us as well. The Corbett family, the “first family” of Ark of Hope is holding up as well as can be expected. We are prayer warriors and strong most of the time. Our mentally challenged children do not fully know what is happening yet unless the time should come that they need to know. Verna’s ex-husband ray, whom we care for is prayerful and very supportive as well.
History; Verna and the Corbett family have been going through quite a trial. On September 21st she had surgery for a Gastric Bypass, which was meant to be a surprise for so many. This is why so few knew. Almost immediately Verna began vomiting up everything even though all she could have were small amounts of liquid. More complications happened Tuesday evening, September 22nd which caused her not to be able to leave the hospital until Thursday afternoon September 24th. Vomiting continued but all her vitals were good and no outward signs of infection anywhere.
On Sunday she was much more week so we took a trip to the Shand’s Teaching Hospital emergency room. After a difficult 12 hour ordeal in the emergency and waiting rooms Verna had a thorough swallow study x-ray done. This time it showed almost a complete blockage in her colon and nothing was moving past a certain area, leaving liquids nowhere to go but back up. Armed with this information the surgeon’s went back in for a second operation on Monday, September 29th. Once inside they found an accordianed, (basically collapsed) colon. Upon re-stretching it they found a perforation with an infected area attached. They repaired the hole and removed the infected area, which can always leave infection and bacteria behind or moving through her system. This is called Septic Shock which she is now in the beginning stages of.
Verna Corbett
