Even though The Real Housewives of Orange County star Vicki Gunvalson blocked her son-in-law on FaceTime over a feud back in May, she loves her family.
She especially loves her daughter, Briana Culberson, and misses her. They live on opposite coasts.
Now, Vicki is reflecting on what it was like to almost lose Briana to a dangerous infection just a few years ago. These details are chilling.
Even if you watch The Real Housewives of Orange County online, you won’t have seen this particular story.
Speaking to the Daily Dish podcast this week, Vicki Gunvalson relives the painful memory of daughter Briana Culberson’s brush with death.
“We almost lost her a couple years ago,” Vicki shares about her 31-year-old daughter.
“That was one of the biggest fears I had in my life while I was filming,” Vicki admits. And that’s no surprise — it’s every parent’s worse fear.
Vicki says: “It’s my ‘Oh, my God,’ moment.”
Vicki elaborates, revealing some of the details of her daughter’s ailment.
“She was super, super sick,” Vicki shares, explaining that Briana “got a very, very bad infectious disease from the hospital.”
Your mind might jump to a staph infection, but this was no ordinary situation, as we’ll explain in a moment.
Revealing how bad things became at one point, “They almost amputated her leg.”
We are relieved that it didn’t come to that — but Vicki and Briana herself have to be much more relieved.
“The viewers don’t know” the details, Vicki says. “But we can share it now because she survived it.”
That entire ordeal must have been scary and nightmarish.
“But it was horrible,” Vicki says, stating the obvious.
This isn’t the first time that she’s mentioned this terrifying ordeal.
Back in 2017, Vicki said that Briana contracted the infection during a surgery that she received in Oklahoma.
“It almost killed my daughter,” Vicki revealed at the time.
Vicki shared: “[The scalpel was infected] with feces from a previous surgery the day they put inside her body.”
“So, not good,” Vicki said. “She almost lost her leg.”
“I mean she almost died,” Vicki clarified. “And all this stuff.”
Briana actually works as a nurse at UNC Medical Center. The Triangle area of North Carolina is home to a number of world-class hospitals, and we’re sure that they’re lucky to have her.
“[That] is actually where she works,” Vicki gushed. “She’s an ER trauma nurse.”
Briana lives in North Carolina with her husband, Ryan Culberson, and their sons, Troy and Owen.
Briana also has lupus, a dangerous autoimmune disease.
“They’ve got a great lupus center out there,” Vicki says. “So if God brought her out there to help her get through this, that was the good thing from it.”
Vicki misses her daughter but is glad that she’s where she wants to be with her loving family and where she can receive the medical treatments that she needs.
Still, with this happening just a few years ago, we imagine that the trauma and heartbreak of that near miss are still haunting Vicki.
She is probably still processing it — and extra anxious about her family.
We are so sorry that Briana had to go through this, and so sorry for her entire family — her husband, her children, and her mother — that they had to endure that harrowing experience with her.
