Memorial fund Vicki Covarrubias

Hello, we are the daughters of Vicki. We are starting this to help cover our mom’s final expenses and hospital bills.

Vicki’s story:

For the last six months, our mom has been battling metastasized breast cancer. She underwent shoulder replacement surgery, February 18th, 2021. During this procedure, the surgeon found abnormal bone tissue. After further testing, they were able to determine the tissue was cancerous and so the testing began.

During the many scans and tests, they confirmed the cancer had spread throughout her complete skeletal system. She was told there were two areas, in her leg and hip, that required surgery to remove tumor and replace bone. Mom was told this type of cancer was terminal but there were treatment options that could extend her life. Part of the treatment included starting a chemotherapy pill that would help reduce how fast the cancer cells would grow. During this time. Mom was in good spirits and determined to fight this bout of cancer, like she had fought the first time, she had breast cancer.

On March 11th, she was admitted to The University of Kansas Hospital. After more testing and scans, they determined mom had C-diff, an infection of the intestines that is common for people to get while taking antibiotics. it was also determined that she needed surgery on the tumors and bones much sooner than they originally thought but that she needed to get over the C-diff infection first . At this time, she was labeled as “non-weight bearing” on her lower extremities, forcing us to send her to a facility until she was over the infection and they could schedule surgery.

Getting over the C-diff became a big battle on its own. Normally it takes two weeks of antibiotics to get over. For mom, she did not get a negative test back until May 16th. Now she just needed to wait 2 more weeks for surgery. Unfortunately, on May 13th while working with PT, attempting to get out of bed, mom and the PT heard a loud pop sound, followed by pain. Mom was then sent to KU Med and found her hip was now broken but they still couldn’t do surgery for two more weeks. She returned to a facility until the day before surgery.

On June 1st, Vicki underwent hip replacement surgery. Mid-way though the surgery, her heart stopped. The surgeons did CPR and were able to revive her but were unable to finish the surgery. She was transferred to the ICU to recover, until she was stable enough to finish surgery. Not finishing the surgery, was not an option. She now, didn’t have anything connecting her pelvis to her leg. On June 9th, surgeons went back into finish the surgery. The surgery went great and we thought she was on the road to getting home.

On June 15th, she under went a CT, to see her overall progress, this is when they found a kidney stone. with mom’s condition they felt that it was best to put in a nephrology catheter, to help drain the urine from her body, and help with labs. With this scan, it also showed the cancer had spread. This meant the cancer was growing much faster than we had originally thought.

Mom was complaining about a lot of pain in her leg. More X-rays showed she had a fracture in her femur that needed to stabilize with a rod. She underwent a 3rd surgery on June 22nd. After this successful surgery, they found the first surgery site was infected. This meant they would have to drain the abscess in another procedure. On July 12th, she went to IR. They were able to use a needle to aspirate the large pocket of fluid. After testing, it was determined that she would need to add another antibiotic to treat the infection. At this point the hospital deemed mom stable enough to be discharged to a long term acute care hospital.

On July 16th, mom was admitted to Kindred hospital. The plan was to stay there until she finished this antibiotic and then she would move to a skilled nursing facility. At this time mom was able to sit up in bed. She got back in to crocheting and seemed to be on the right path to recovery. Until she started complaining of pain in her side and overall, was not as alert as she had been. A CT scan confirmed, she had a pleural effusion in her right lung, that needed to be drained. On August 22nd, she was able to get that fluid drained off her lung at KU Med and returned to kindred after the procedure.We were all very hopeful that this would be the last hurdle on the road to getting home. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In the few days following, she became less and less alert. On August 26th, mom vocalized her decision that her journey here on earth was over, and that it was time to let her go be with the Lord. Her wishes were fulfilled.

If you would like to make a donation directly to the funeral home we are using Runsey-Yost. Please feel free to contact them.

Rumsey-Yost funeral home and crematory

601 Indiana st

lawrence,KS 66044