Greg Covid - Day 20 - Not Much Change

I spoke with Greg's nurse, Amanda this morning (such a sweet person!) Greg had a pretty good night.  His temperature is under control and they are coming down on the blood pressure meds.  He is still on pressure support – he’s doing most of breathing on his own, but is still requiring a decent amount of sedation to keep him comfortable.  They don't have the results from the cultures yet.  

Around 6 p.m., I spoke to Amanda again.  Greg had a pretty decent day.  When the doctors did their rounds today, they decided he has some extra fluid, so they started him on IV Lasix (he took Lasix normally for his heart failure, so I'm not surprised by this).  It will help with his lungs and breathing and they have better control with an IV than pills.  They didn't too much otherwise, which she said was a good thing.  There were no changes to the vent, and he has gone up and down on blood pressure meds, but that is to be expected, because when there’s less fluid in the vessels, your blood pressure goes down.  But it was nothing crazy. 

She said that they have the TV on in his room and sometimes music.  This morning, they had it on a movie channel and had Wonder Woman on!  She said there was another superhero moving coming on, I don't know which movie it was, but when I told her about my Iron Man, she thought it was the perfect movie for him!  I did tell her that he loves sports, so a Brewer game or football game would also be good for him.  

So, that's it for today's update.  Not much to report, but that is not a bad thing.  We still need to wait for the cultures to come back, so please pray that the doctors are able to figure out what infection he has so they can treat it appropriately and he can start to get better.  Please also pray that his Covid test comes out negative so I can go visit him!  

Today's picture of Greg is from July, 2003.  We were on vacation in the Outer Banks in North Carolina in this picture.  This was actually the first time Greg had been to the ocean!  He was busy taking videos of the kids enjoying their first time in the ocean, as well!  It was an awesome trip, where we got to visit with and actually meet in person someone I met in a camping forum a few years previously.  Bud and his family were awesome hosts when we visited with them and it was because of them that we went to the Outer Banks on this particular trip and remain good friends to this day.

For all that have been asking about me, I'm doing OK, I guess.  Tonight I'm going to have some of the lasagna that Erica made for me.  It's nice to have ready-to-eat foods that are not crappy frozen foods, so while I thought I didn't need anything, I'm incredibly grateful for everything she's made for me.  I insisted I didn't need her to do that, and she insisted that I did.  I am so thankful that she didn't listen to me!  I also need to thank the friend of Abby's that dropped off some amazing food today, too!  Leah, the pumpkin cupcakes are delicious, and I'll be having some molasses cookies (a favorite of mine!) after dinner tonight.   I can't wait to try the rest of the food you made.  It all looks so delicious!  I can't thank you enough and it was very sweet of you to make all that!  Also, thanks to Erica's friend, Morgan for the chocolate chip/banana muffins!  They look delicious and will make a great breakfast treat!  It's so sweet of everyone to do this for me.  

Abby has been here doing all kinds of different stuff for me that I'm not really able to do.  She took 100 feet of hose to the basement for me for the winter and turned off both outside faucets.  I just have to remember to go outside and open the faucets so we don't have to worry about them freezing over the winter.  I have two cement bird baths that she took the top bath part off and tipped on their sides so I don't have to worry about them cracking in the winter.  She also made some adjustments in the chicken coop for me.  Abby has been so awesome in helping out with the heavy work that needs to be done!  

I spent the day cleaning the family room and my office, along with going through a bunch of paperwork.  I also went to the dump and cleaned up all the dog poo outside (three dogs really poo a lot!) and took all mom's hanging baskets and put them behind the shed so I can empty them and make my own hanging baskets next spring.  I still have to move mine, and I'll do that in the next couple of days.  It's really handy having the ATV to move all that stuff around!  I had to move a 50 pound bag of dog food into the house and a 50 pound bag of chicken feed to the coop, and my back is hurting a bit now, but I'm sure that will be gone by tomorrow.  I also managed to get a couple loads of laundry done.  Maybe mom will fold it all for me tomorrow.  

Work is getting more intense these days.  As I mentioned, I'm on mandatory overtime right now and it's probably going to last until at least March.  I now have to do 12-1/2 hours OT each week for the next two weeks.  I have to do 25 hours total and can work it however I want, which is good.  I'll most likely be working from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the week, and will have to put in about 4 hours on Saturday mornings.   If I work much past 4 p.m. I start to make stupid mistakes because my brain is tired, so I know it's time to stop.  I may stop working earlier and then go back to work a couple hours later, but with everything there is to do, it'll probably be easier to just work until 4 and be done for the day and put in some extra hours on Saturday.  I don't know.  I guess I'll figure it out as the week goes by.  I must say, it's a whole lot easier doing all this overtime when my office is just downstairs and I can go to work at anytime and don't have to drive anywhere! I am truly blessed to have been able to work from home for the last four years.  It just makes life so much easier.

When I was working outside, I realized something.  When Greg was home, he'd be working inside and outside and he'd always have his outside radio on, either listening to a Brewer game, or cranking up some music, and he'd have YouTube playing on the computer in his office.  While I usually have a TV on when I'm home (sometimes just for background noise), I realized that it's really very quiet without Greg here and it made me feel quite lonely.  I miss him.  I miss going outside when he's in his office and turning off the radio, or when he's outside, going to his office and stopping whatever he has playing on YouTube.  I miss him grilling steaks for us.  I miss making dinner for him.  I miss his hugs and kisses.  I miss hollering at him when he does something stupid (LOL).  Quite simply, I just miss him.  

Please hug and kiss your loved ones and remind them how much you love them, because you never know when you won't be able to do just that.  

Love, Peace and Prayers, 

Julie