A personal Covid Experience

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So sorry to read all you and your son have been through. My thoughts and prayers are with Jeffery for a smooth recovery and renewed health.
 
I will also join in a quick 10AM prayer.

Alan, I also want to thank you for sharing with us. This is a very personal journey and your sharing will help many of us, specifically when it comes to speaking with our younger relatives hesitant to take a vaccine.

It is frightening how fast we went from taking this a bit lightly to it going into a serious medical crisis. I think younger people need to see this.

We can also vouch for you. You've been here a long time and have always been a very kind and fair moderator with a balanced view of topics. In other words, your integrity is unblemished and I know that everyone on this forum would agree with me. I even hate typing this last paragraph, but only have to because some would ask "But this is just someone on the internet." Nope, you are our family.
 
JoeWras said:
I will also join in a quick 10AM prayer.

Alan, I also want to thank you for sharing with us. This is a very personal journey and your sharing will help many of us, specifically when it comes to speaking with our younger relatives hesitant to take a vaccine.

It is frightening how fast we went from taking this a bit lightly to it going into a serious medical crisis. I think younger people need to see this.

We can also vouch for you. You've been here a long time and have always been a very kind and fair moderator with a balanced view of topics. In other words, your integrity is unblemished and I know that everyone on this forum would agree with me. I even hate typing this last paragraph, but only have to because some would ask "But this is just someone on the internet." Nope, you are our family.
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You've expressed my thoughts better than I could; thank you for writing this.
 
Alan. So sorry. I had not checked this thread for several days. We will be praying at 10 AM. Such a curse this illness is, defying science's best efforts to get control and mysteriously selecting young healthy individuals. God's speed.
 
A little positive news today. They decided they didn't need to lie him on his front as his stats and blood tests all improved, and they have cut back on the amount of oxygen to 40% from 60%.

We do remember what the doctor said, that this will be a long journey with big swings from day to day or even hour to hour. Still, nice to start on positive change.
 
I'm here with Alan's Army..


Prayer going up for Thankfulness about Jeffery's improvement. We know it can be up or down but I pray for more up and less down.


Continuing to pray for Jeffery and his whole family may they find some peace.


Prayer for the medical team that is taking such great care of him. These wonderful medical people who have a vocation and take their job as a substitute for family during Covid to heart. May God Bless them ..


Shall we come back tomorrow at the same time?
 
I bet the man upstairs was overwhelmed with prayers for Jeffrey at 10 am. All the angels are saying that this guy must be someone very special and we better make sure he recovers really soon.
 
I'll be praying then, too! Thank you for keeping us informed...we are grateful for your trust...
 
Alan said:
A little positive news today. They decided they didn't need to lie him on his front as his stats and blood tests all improved, and they have cut back on the amount of oxygen to 40% from 60%.

We do remember what the doctor said, that this will be a long journey with big swings from day to day or even hour to hour. Still, nice to start on positive change.
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That is definitely some good news
 
Keep the good news coming.
 
Alan said:
A little positive news today. They decided they didn't need to lie him on his front as his stats and blood tests all improved, and they have cut back on the amount of oxygen to 40% from 60%.

We do remember what the doctor said, that this will be a long journey with big swings from day to day or even hour to hour. Still, nice to start on positive change.
Click to expand...

Alan, I'm just picking up this thread after a week at work.

I'm really sorry to hear what you're going through.

The night my wife called me to say they were putting her on a ventilator was the most shocking moment of my life. I too had that realization that it might be the last time I speak to her. They had already started to sedate her. 2 minutes of speaking with her and then we had to hang up. I completely lost it.

But my 17 year old daughter -- wise beyond her years -- kept saying to me "Remember Dad, people come off of ventilators." It got us through that horrid night. While things actually got much worse from that point, ultimately my daughter was proven right. DW came off the ventilator 35 days later.

I learned a lot about ventilators in the intervening weeks.

One thing I learned was the "40% oxygen" sounds like more than it is. I originally thought that meant the machine was set to 40% of its max O2 capacity. It actually means that the air he is receiving is 40% oxygen vs. the 23% normally in the air. If they tell you the machine is at 23%, it means he's getting normal air. I don't know if that helps, but it made me feel a bit better to know the support was less than I first thought.

There are also multiple settings on a ventilator including the amount of pressure, the amount of inflation support and whether the vent is doing the work of triggering the breaths or if it is amplifying the person's own breathing motions.

Knowing these facts doesn't change the reality of the situation, but I found that knowing them gave me some calibration as to where we were in terms of support levels. It also gave me another way to understand the changes day-over-day and week-over-week. When he comes off the ventilator they will start doing "sprints" adjusting these settings down to strengthen his lungs and then turning them back up to rest them.

If they haven't already, they are likely to say they want to do a tracheostomy so that the ventilators doesn't require all of the tubes through his mouth. A doc told me ahead of time that this might happen and that I should agree to it. My emotional reaction to the idea was really bad -- but I'm glad I knew to agree to it. Its much easier on the patient, reduces the risk of long term harms from the tubes, lowers infection risk, and makes it easier for them to do physical therapy and other things after they start to wake him up but before he's off the ventilator. Later in the recovery, it allowed them to put a "speaking valve" on so that she could get some words out even though she was still on the vent. The resulting scar is quite minimal and the recovery from the trach a non-event.

The fact that all of his organs are doing well is great news. When DW got sick her kidneys shut down (followed by a lot of other stuff). The docs told me that the kidneys were the first thing to pack it in when people suffer a downturn. It seems like they have your son's problems well isolated to his lungs. This is currently a critical, but at least one-dimensional, situation.

The inherent strength/healthiness that he has will really help see him through this. And it may offer other options if the ventilator struggles to be enough. The docs may still have other tricks up their sleeve.

The fact that the NHS isn't allowing you to see him is a good sign. It means they aren't currently worried that he might pass away. Facetime calls suck and are no substitute for being there -- but they are a good sign in the current environment.

(When DW was in the hospital they let me in to visit her. I heard another family crying down the hall and mentioned to the nurse that she must have a lot of families getting gowned up in PPE. She said they were only letting people in for end-of-life circumstances. I just sort of blinked and she realized no one had put it to me that way. I knew it was the situation, but it was still like a punch to the forehead.)

If I might make a practical suggestion: write down everything the docs and nurses are telling you, noting both the time and date. Ideally also catch the name of the person you're speaking with. The NHS saved DWs life but their record keeping imploded as they stepped her down from ICU levels and into regular wards. I became a primary vehicle for sharing medical status, history and even medication summaries between medical teams. That was at the absolute peak of the Covid madness, but I think its also a weakness of the NHS.

Do take solace from the fact that he will remember none of this. Only after DW came home did I realize that the amnesia was complete. In fact, we had to go to great pains to explain to her what actually happened. That's another benefit of taking detailed notes, you can help re-create the history for someone who will have a multi-week gap in their memory.

I don't know if you're religious, but I tried to recall the words of St. Ignatius:
"Act as though it all depends on you, trust as though it all depends on God."

I'm sorry you're on this path --- but keep the faith. The NHS is really, really good at this stuff. Your son is otherwise healthy. Loads of people are praying. All of the right gears are in motion to see you and your family through to the other side of this.
 
Jeffrey continues to improve. We just got off the phone with the ICU and the news is that yesterday they began reducing the drugs keeping him in the medical coma, his blood oxygen was maintaining at 95%, he is now off BP drugs as he no longer needs them. Antibiotics continue for the side infection in his lung.

Today he is on 30% oxygen from the ventilator and they will be taking a chest x-ray later today. They expect to take him off the ventilator tomorrow.

Such good news.
 
Good news indeed. I continue to pray for his safe recovery.
 
Alan said:
Jeffrey continues to improve. We just got off the phone with the ICU and the news is that yesterday they began reducing the drugs keeping him in the medical coma, his blood oxygen was maintaining at 95%, he is now off BP drugs as he no longer needs them. Antibiotics continue for the side infection in his lung.

Today he is on 30% oxygen from the ventilator and they will be taking a chest x-ray later today. They expect to take him off the ventilator tomorrow.

Such good news.
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This just put a huge smile on my face!
 
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, maybe today’s prayers will be the final push he needs.
 
Very good news. Praying things go even better as he goes forward.
 
Alan said:
Jeffrey continues to improve. We just got off the phone with the ICU and the news is that yesterday they began reducing the drugs keeping him in the medical coma, his blood oxygen was maintaining at 95%, he is now off BP drugs as he no longer needs them. Antibiotics continue for the side infection in his lung.

Today he is on 30% oxygen from the ventilator and they will be taking a chest x-ray later today. They expect to take him off the ventilator tomorrow.

Such good news.
Click to expand...
Wow! Wonderful! Absolutely fantastic!
 
That is very encouraging and so pleased to hear that he is getting better!
 
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