Yet Another Corona Blog

Yesterday, I tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies, so that indicates that I had covid-19 despite the 7 negative nasal swab tests. Dad is still in the rehab center, but he is only using 2 liters per minute oxygen.  We expect that he will be sent to the Harmony assisted living center in State College, PA this week. My day time oxygen saturations are fine (like 95%), but I still am tired and I have to be careful when I stand up because I sometimes feel like I'm going to pass out.  My resting heart rate is 69 beats per minutes.  My resting heart rate before covid was in the upper 50s.  

    My father has improved a lot of the last few days.  He wanted to leave the rehab center today, but they said he would die if he left without oxygen, but I'm not so sure they're right about that.  Dad is down to 3 liters a minute and saturating around 96% which means he may be able to be on room air either now or in a couple of days.  He still has balance issues and he is not always 100% there mentally, but my brother is working on getting him discharged so that he can join my mother at Harmony assisted living in State College, PA.    Today, I was well enough to shovel snow!  I had to shovel a small path to my car and I had to shovel little lanes for each tire and get the snow off the car.  I was able to do that and drive for an hour afterward. I still have an elevated resting heart rate and I often feel a bit of dizziness when I first get up.  But my resting heart rate is returning to normal and I usually need to wait a minute or less for the dizziness to clear.      In sum

  So dad is in recovery and seems to be improving slowly.  My daughter and I have visited him three times and three days.  The first time he spoke mostly Norwegian, which is a bit difficult for me to understand (I came to America at the age of two and a half and stopped speaking Norwegian at the age of three.)  He seemed to have a bit of trouble tracking us with his eyes.  The other two times, he was much clearer, speaking 100% English.  There was a closed window between us, but both dad and I spoke on a cell phone, so it was easy for us to hear him.  He was very happy that I was out of the hospital.  He seemed to be on 7 liters per minute oxygen.  If they can get him down to 3 liters per minute, then we can move him into assisted living with my mother.    We, my father and I, are both rebuilding our bodies — mostly our lungs.  I was discharged from the hospital on Dec 9 after demonstrating that I could walk 100 feet without oxygen.  Two days later on Dec 11, I managed to walk indoors

Dad is doing alright.  His biggest problem is that he needs 10 liters per minute of oxygen to stay alive.   He is doing very well with occupational and physical therapy.   His lungs need to heal.   He has other neurological problems that largely predated covid.   His eye hand coordination, balance, and ability to read have been problematic over the last year.   As a result he has had difficulty operating a cell phone.   But otherwise, he is improving. The last two days have been a great improvement for me.  I was discharged from the hospital two days ago!!  At the hospital, my lungs had healed enough that I was on room air (no supplemental oxygen) for 23 hours a day.  I am staying at my parent’s house and my daughter has driven down from Brown University to take care of me.   My high high school friend Scott helped me out a lot in the hospital.  Normally, I take a vitamin D supplement prescribed by my doctor.  The hospital for some unknown reason would never give me vitamin D.  Scot

 My dad has been able to overcome some of his limitation,  It seemed that his cell phone died and we were not able to reach him.  He had written down my mother's phone number but could not dial it.  He has twice now gotten a "friend" to dial the phone number for him so that he could talk to mom.   My brother has also somehow navigated the system to talk with dad and dad's nurse.  Maybe they give my brother more respect because he calls from a hospital.    I have been improving.  For the last two nights, I have been mostly able to avoid supplemental oxygen saturating at 91% to 93% during the night, but mornings are problematic.  I desaturate a little when sitting up early in the morning.  I desaturate a lot during breakfast.  It’s hard to breath while eatting.  Even with two liters per min of oxygen, I was saturation as low as 86% during breakfast.   After breakfast, it took a few minutes of sitting in the very comfortable hospital reclining easy chair to recover my O2

Dad is stable and talking.   He is a bit frustrated that his situation has not been improving recently.   He speaks Norwegian when I talk to him, but seems to understand my English responses. My situation at the hospital has been improving.  For most of the last 6 days, I have needed 5 liters per minute of oxygen.  On Saturday, that requirement varied between 2 and 4 liters per minute.  I even had 30 minute periods without oxygen, but when I walked, I needed 8 liters per minute.  On Sunday, my pattern was similar needing 3 liters/min when sitting and 6 to 8 liters while standing.  At 3 liters per minute, I get light headed in one minute if I stand. One of the periods without oxygen was accidental.  During my sleep, the oxygen became disconnected from the wall.  Such accidental disconnections happened to my son when he had his childhood lung problems.  In my case, there was no continuous oxygen monitoring, so the nursed was not alerted — a bit scary. TLDR:  Dad is stable.  I have i

   My dad has been fighting a long, arduous battle against covid since November 2.  For a month, he experienced the fevers, weakness, and the shortness of breath that is common for covid patients.  Why has he survived?  I think he has had three great loves that have allowed him to persevere:  love of family, love of nature, and love of sport.    My father has always had strong emotions.  Over the years, he has done much for my mother, my brother, his aunt, and my children.  My mother has had chronic fatigue syndrome, so my father did the shopping and ran the house financially.  He always helped his now 97 year-old aunt in Brooklyn with any financial matters together with multiple phone calls.  He sent my brother and I though college and calls us a few times per week even though he is not talkative (my mother does most of the talking.)  He always drove the 4 to 6 hour trips to the hospital when my son was having lung issues (more than a dozen times).  Many times he drove to my house to

My dad has become good enough to leave the hospital. He is in rehab. I got  pneumonia.   I've been in the hospital for several days. It looks like they may release me in like four days