Taylor received his Covid-19 test results yesterday after waiting for four days...confirmation: positive. He continues to have a hard time breathing, finds talking exhausting, and today he started coughing up blood. He’s really tired and can’t get enough oxygen into into his lungs. He has decided to undergo sedation and go onto a ventilator. This will allow his exhausted body to rest while providing more oxygen under high pressure into his bloodstream via mechanical respiration.
Ongoing Zoom streaming will no longer be permitted. Our 24-hour, 3-day long remote bedside sitting ICU session with Taylor has now come to an end so they can prepare and care for him during intubation. We cannot see him, cannot comfort him, cannot hold him. We cannot watch over him as he sleeps, we cannot hold his hand and encourage him when he wakes. Our Zoom screen is down by one less camera, but we keep this video conference session running, waiting for the day that he will wake up and be able to log back in and join us.
His doctors would like to prescribe medication to battle his lung infection, but since there is no proven drug, they are casting their hypotheses wide. Doctors are talking across the nation of possible effective drugs designed for other ailments that might have applications for failing lungs (all with no guarantees along with possible negative side effects). Remdesivir shows promise and was administered effectively to a 70-year old Covid patient on Taylor’s wing a couple days ago. When Taylor asked me on camera why they couldn’t use it on him, I had to explain that this medication currently can only be “compassionately used” in “off label” applications on a trial basis to Covid patients whose health have deteriorated into acute respiratory distress. Because he was still breathing on his own, Taylor was ineligible. Since then, Remdesivir now is no longer an option to him if he needs it since the clinical trial just closed to additional patients. As a result, our doctor has recommended an alternative medication, Tocilizumab, which is showing promise across the medical profession...and we just gave the okay for this “off label use” with no guarantees, along with all possible negative side effects. This is the Wild West of medical remedy discovery and Taylor will be the first Covid-19 patient at this hospital to be administered this medication.
Taylor lives with Jessea and Nikki, his two sisters. Virginia, their 78-year old step-grandmother, also lives with them. Virginia was approved to take a Covid test due to Taylor’s diagnosis and a fever she developed today. Jessea drove her to the drive-up test station this afternoon and we are unsure when she will receive her test results.
Thank you everyone, for embracing Taylor and our family in your loving thoughts and prayers. Continue to do your part to flatten the curve. Stay At Home to protect your family’s health ...and to best support our medical professionals who have an enormous challenge looming ahead of them. And thank you to the grocery clerks, sanitation workers, water treatment operators, restaurant cooks, delivery persons, government employees, first responders and all others who are serving on the front lines so we are able to safely stay in place during these unprecedented times.