FAIRFAX, VA-In January 2024, Abbey Brassfield woke up with a cough and what she thought were the beginning stages of a cold at her home in Exmore, Virginia, on the Eastern Shore. The 46-year-old mother of three, school administrator, and CrossFit instructor thought it would pass, but what started out as a case of the flu quickly worsened.
“I went to my doctor on January 16th, and it had gotten so bad that by the 19th, we dropped my kids off at school in the morning and then my husband took me to the emergency room at Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital,” she said. “I vaguely remember being there, but that was the last thing that I remember until March.”
Her severe case of influenza progressed into pneumonia, sepsis, and a blood infection. To save her life, clinicians placed her on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma. Within two days of being admitted, she was med-evacuated from Riverside to Sentara Heart Hospital in Norfolk before being transported nearly 200 miles from Sentara Heart Hospital in Norfolk to Inova Schar Heart and Vascular in Fairfax, where she was cared for by several specialists, including members of the advanced lung disease team, medical intensivists in the Cardiovascular Critical Care unit, and the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) team.
ECMO provides temporary support for the lungs and heart in patients and is connected through plastic tubes that are placed in the large veins and arteries in the legs, neck, or chest. It functions as the patient’s lungs by drawing blood from the body to a pump that pushes the blood through an artificial lung, or oxygenator, to add oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.
“Then we give that blood back to the patient, essentially letting the lungs relax and recover from whatever damage has been done,” said Cameron Brammer, MD, a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician at Inova Fairfax Hospital, who was part of Brassfield’s care team.
While ECMO does not cure disease, it allows time for the patient to recover before their next phase of care. Sometimes, that can take weeks and Inova will often admit patients who need that longer period on ECMO. In fact, the healthcare system treated Ppatient number 1,000 on ECMO earlier this year.
“We will accept patients like Abbey to our hospital for further evaluation and I think we did over 141 cases of ECMO last year,” said Dr. Brammer. “Our ability to do longer time on ECMO has been noticed by other facilities, so we’ve been able to transfer patients like her here.”
Brassfield was on ECMO support for 53 days and when she woke up, she had a tracheostomy and could only communicate with her friends, family, and care team with a dry erase board. When her clinician wrote on the board one day, “Do you want us to move forward with the double lung transplant?” she reached a turning point.
“I just was so determined that this was not going to be my story and so I wrote on my marker board, ‘I’m going to get better and go home to my family’,” Brassfield said.
Getting home to her family involved cleaning out her lungs and physical therapy to help her recovery. She said that once she made her decision, she had the support of the team of doctors and nurses at Inova to make it a reality, and that, “Knowing that they believed in me to get better made all the difference during the early stages of my recovery.”
“Everyone was rooting for me and gave me expert physical care and emotional support as well,” Brassfield said. “My ICU nurses would spend the night shift holding my hand when I was scared and making me laugh during the day, they even set up a special hair washing station for me to look nice when my husband and three sons could come to visit.”
In April, she went home to her husband, Richard, her sons, Wyatt, Connor and Luke and her supportive community. On Memorial Day, after months of physical and occupational therapy, she returned to CrossFit for her first workout. If you’re thinking she took it easy, you’re wrong. Her first workout back was the “Murph”, which is named in honor of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy and consists of a one-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and another one-mile run, usually with a weighted vest.
“I had an oxygen backpack on and I couldn’t do everything, but it was great to have my gym family around me and we just did the best that I could,” said Abbey. “Every day is a personal record and that is how I have treated my whole recovery since then when it comes to physical and mental health. Many people have become a part of my extended care team and it’s amazing to see how many lives we all touch in positive ways.”
One change she has made since her time on ECMO is to be diligent about getting the flu shot every year. When Brassfield got sick in 2024, she had not gotten around to getting the vaccine. This season, she wasted no time.
“The minute the flu shot came out, we had a flu clinic at my children’s school, and I picked the kids up and we went right there. I did have a shorter illness this winter, but I really know that having the flu shot helped,” she said.
In discussing her time at Inova, Brassfield shared, “I know it truly saved my life and hope the doctors and nurses know how grateful we are for their commitment to keeping people alive and families together. Being alive and healing with my family and friends is such a blessing!”
“I wish I could do more to help others going through ECMO and other challenges to find hope and keep going. As a very grateful wellness advocate, I’m glad I can at least encourage everyone around me to do what they can to live a healthy lifestyle, with the people they love, for as long as possible,” she added.
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