Barbara Mundy

Barb (Buck) Mundy has been battling a disease known as scleroderma and the type she has is called CREST syndrome.  This disease first surfaced some 25-30 years ago in the form of Raynaud's phenomenon.  Barb would experience white or cold hands and feet in cold weather which was very easy to notice living in Minnesota all her life.  In March of 2017 she was experiencing shortness of breath which landed her in the ER at Methodist Hospital.  Using ultrasound and other tests, doctors diagnosed her condition as pulmonary hypertension (PH).  PH is higher than normal pressure in the heart due to constricting or shrinking vessels in the lungs.  Pressure on the right side of her heart was 4 times what is normal making her condition critical.  PH affects 200 people out of 1 million so is quite rare.

Barb's cardiologist tried to reduce her heart pressure by using drugs to dilate her lung vessels.  This achieved some success  such that by June her heart pressure had been reduced by more than half.  But as summer progressed, her heart pressure began again to increase.  By mid-September her heart pressure had almost returned to the previous critical level.  Barb was hospitalized in early October at Methodist to insert a permanent port that could deliver a powerful drug called Remodulin. using a 24-hour pump  This required home mixing of the drug at prescribed strengths every other day.  By the beginning of November Barb's shortness of breath and weakness had surpassed earlier levels and was hospitalized again.  It was during this hospitalization that her cardiologist informed her and her husband that she was not responding to the powerful drugs and there was really no more they could do to reverse the progression of the pulmonary hypertension.  During the November hospitalization Barb was on very high levels of oxygen support making it impossible to return home.  During her 3-week November hospitalization, they were able to lower her oxygen requirements to a level she could get home Wednesday  before Thanksgiving.  Liquid oxygen tanks were brought home to support her since being released.

Barb's family is comforted in that her eternal destiny is secure, based solely on her faith and trust in the finished work of Christ on the Cross for her (Romans 10:13).

Psalm 46:1  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; ...

Revelation 21:4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.