On March 1, 2025, our friend Brittany Berry experienced a sudden and life-threatening medical emergency. It’s a miracle she is still with us today. Despite the severity of the situation, in a true testament to her strength, she has fought through each hurdle, making incredible progress. Brittany is not just a survivor of this life-altering event--she is a mother to Aria and Carsyn, two bright and loving daughters who need their mom to be healthy, happy and active in their lives. Cody, Brittany's husband, and her mom Diana Berry have been by her side every step of the way, while balancing their work and trading shifts to be next to Brittany every moment. They are showing an unwavering commitment to supporting each other and her through this difficult time. Though she's slowly regaining her strength and ability to do things we often take for granted, the road to full recovery will be long. We’re asking for your support to help cover childcare, medical costs, ongoing therapy, and essential daily care so Brittany and Cody can focus on their recovery without worrying about finances. No donation is too small, and every bit helps. Your generosity will go directly to ensuring the Coop family has everything they need to regain their strength and continue their journey back to full health and normalcy. If you’re unable to contribute financially, sharing this page with your network is a huge help. Together, we can show Brittany and her family that they are not alone, and that we’re here to help them every step of the way. I will also set up a meal train once they make it safely back home. I will keep everyone updated on their journey through this page. For more details on Brittany’s story, please see below. Thank you for your kindness and support! The journey: On March 1, 2025, around 4:30 p.m. Brittney was dressed to perfection preparing to go out with the girls to a local annual fundraiser called "Mom Prom." Brittany and Cody dropped the girls off at our house and us ladies started to split from the kids and husbands. Brittany went to the car, but I was taking too long saying my good-byes. Brittany rushed back in the house saying she was feeling dizzy and saying something was wrong. We laid her down and started monitoring her blood pressures and it was only getting worse. She began screaming in pain that her head was, “hurting and burning”. Shortly after that she was unresponsive but still had a pulse. We started the "medical protocols" for this situation and Cody called 911. The ambulance rushed her to the NWT hospital where they proceeded with the routine x-rays and CT scan for this level of emergency. After the CT radiologist had a report, the bad news hit them: at age 39, this young lady had a brain bleed. Unfortunately, Amarillo doesn't have a neurosurgeon division, so she was airlifted to UMC level 1 trauma hospital in Lubbock. She arrived there around 1:00 a.m. Upon arrival they proceeded with more CT scans and found the brain bleed had gotten even worse. They found an aneurysm that had ruptured and bled in two different places. The on-call surgery team rushed in and met Brittany in the operating room to begin the first of several brain operation thus far. The first was a process to fix the aneurysm by placing a coil in it via an arterial pathway. Unfortunately, this didn't work because her aneurysm was too small. Their second attempt was to perform open brain surgery. There were two options at this point: cauterizing the aneurysm or clipping it. Clipping was the more secure and safe option, but they wouldn't know which one would be possible until they were in surgery. Six hours later, the doctor arrived and told us he couldn’t perform the clip due to the location of the aneurysm and had to cauterize and wrap it with muscle, but it was successful. Post-operative the doctor kept her sedated for three days to begin the recovery process. She was intubated for almost seven days and unable to breathe on her own. After three days of the heavy sedation, the doctor started weaning her off the sedation slowly. This was the first time in several days they saw her move. She was able to respond to physical stimulation on all four extremities. She gradually became more aware. She would open her eyes and respond to yes and no questions with a head shake. After a few more days of waking up, she passed all her tests and was finally cleared to remove the breathing tube. If successful, with the breathing tube out, they would insert a nasogastric (via nose to stomach) feeding tube. After 20-30 minutes and quite a bit of struggle they were able to successfully place the tube into the stomach. This caused a high amount of stress on her and she crashed. She couldn’t open her eyes or follow any commands. The extubating was cancelled until 5 a.m. the next morning when she was becoming stable again. They proceeded with extubating, and we were all so relieved she could breathe on her own again. Until just a few hours later, she started talking and communicating more than before. That was a GREAT sign! Saturday was a fantastic day; she was acting like herself, talking, laughing, making jokes and had visitors. It was all going very well. When Sunday rolled around it took a turn for the worse. Around 8 p.m. she developed a fever over 103 degrees. She had trouble breathing which forced them to intubate her again because she had developed double pneumonia. The doctor prescribed her antibiotics for the next 7 days. During this time, they were monitoring how much fluid was draining from her brain. Unfortunately, the amount of fluid was too much so another operation was performed. This procedure was scheduled for Wednesday, but since she was already intubated, they were able to get it done sooner. Before this surgery more issues started to arise. She started seizure-like activity, but they were very small and only happened in her face. The doctors ordered an EEG scan to investigate, but she no active seizures during the scan so they proceeded with the scheduled surgery. This surgery was a success. They placed the shunt in her brain connected to a drain tube down into her abdomen and confirmed proper function. An hour after returning to her room she started having seizures again which led to a 24-hour EEG monitor. They discovered the seizures were happening every 10 minutes, lasting from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. They pushed more medications but decided to sedate her again to break the cycle. This round of sedation lasted almost 36 hours. While she was sedated, her brain scans showed signs of vasospasm which is the most common complication of a brain injury, but also the deadliest because it could cause another stroke if it gets out of hand. This led to another surgery where they went through via artery again to inject contrast back into her brain to monitor spasms in real time. Sure enough, she was having small spasms in both parts of her brain. During this operation, they found another issue: her aneurysm had grown, meaning the first surgery to fix it was NOT a complete success. They gave her medication directly into her brain to stop the spams and discussed what would be the best course of action to fix the aneurysm. They decided to go back into the artery the next day and perform a double layer of protection at the site of the aneurysm with a coil and stent dual operation, like the original plan with a kick. After a day of recovery, it was time to extubate again. This time she didn’t pass a “cuff leak” test, meaning her throat had swollen and wouldn’t allow air past the tube. A 24-hour steroid injection was administered in hopes to decrease swelling. At this time, she was 24-hours clear of seizure activity, which confirmed the cycle had been broken and she could be managed with medication alone. The extubating was successful and after 24 hours she passed the cuff leak test. She now is back on the road to recovery; the neurosurgeon team had done all they could. The only things slowing her down now was the pneumonia and vasospasm. Vasospasm has been the issue. Though she received the direct injection of medication to the brain it is only effective for a day or two at best. She completed a positive test for vasospasm for a few days, so they gave her another IV and oral medication to help with them. Doctor wanted to see if any progress would be made using this method rather than a direct brain injection for a second time. She had one recent bad spasm attack, but they have continued to improve. Brittany has been clear of spasms for 3 days (as of Saturday, March 22) according to the Doppler scan. Her recent chest x-ray has also resulted in clear lungs, no more pneumonia! She’s been talking, moving her arms and legs well. She can walk with a walker and some help. She’s making a lot of progress quickly which is a blessing for this level of trauma. On Sunday, March 23, she was released from UMC (Lubbock hospital) and booked into NWTH (Amarillo hospital) rehabilitation floor to work on physical, occupational and speech therapy. Upon booking her in and her initial evaluation, they decided speech therapy wasn’t needed after all. She has been experiencing tremendous headaches and is struggling with keeping the pain under control. She can open her right eye just fine, but she can’t see out of it yet, so she keeps it squinted to see better out of her left eye. On Sunday night she did get to see Aria and Carsyn very briefly for the first time since it all started. She is booked in ICU so the girls aren’t allowed to go in due to their age. They must get Brittany gowned and masked and gloved and in a wheelchair. This is because she had elevated white counts, and they want to take extra precautions to protect her. Then they had to take her to a common area outside the ICU where she met up with the girls. Of course, that takes a toll on her and sitting upright long increases the headaches, but they did get to hug mama. She’s been doing great with rehab. Her last update said she could stand for 2 minutes, stand for 20 seconds with her eyes closed and can walk all the way back to her room without her walker. Cody and Diana have returned to work because they were given x amount of time, but they are trading shifts days and nights. While one is working the other is with her. It’s exhausting for them, but they are doing a wonderful job keeping it all balanced. The girls have spent a few weeks in more sleep overs than they would have ever imagined, but people from school, friends of friends, and an out-of-town family friend have all been taking very good care and entertaining them and taking them to gymnastics and spring break camp. We have all been a strong tribe working together to help the Coop family through this. The road to recovery is going to be a long and challenging one, but she’s got this! She has one operation planned for future, but it will be farther down along the road. It will include installing a bone flap in the hollow spot where they did the surgeries. She will have many doctor’s visits, scans, tests and medications to take care of for the unforeseeable future. Cody, Aria, Carsyn and Diana wanted to make sure to let everyone know they appreciate and thank everyone so much for the support, prayers, and help for their family. I will keep everyone updated here and there on progress. I will also plan a meal train when she’s released. Please text me if you would like to be added to that list.