For just the second time in its nine-year existence, Frank-Incensed welcomes a guest blogger. I first met Ed Butdorf years ago when we both found ourselves in Las Vegas. Ed’s brother Doug was a work colleague of mine for several years, and Ed and I spent a day together while Doug was working a trade show. We have been social media friends ever since. He is 50 years old, an electrical contractor from the rural Ohio town of Wooster, and a husband, father, and avid outdoorsman. Significantly, he had no underlying conditions prior to his infection. Ed is the second of my friends to become critically ill with Covid 19, and he detailed his experiences in a series of Facebook posts. With his permission, I have lightly edited them and reformatted them into a single (and extremely compelling and emotional) blog post. Take it away Ed!
Infection
October 30th: I woke up feeling ill. I had a low-grade fever (in the 99.5 range). I had not yet been able to get out for a flu shot and had assumed that perhaps I managed to grab a case of the flu. My body was a little achy, but nothing too serious. I stayed home in bed all day and tried to recover.
October 31st: This day I woke up to a higher fever and I was starting to feel considerably worse. My fear that it might be Covid was setting in. I am one of the very fortunate people in this world who is not only a patient of my doctor; he is also my friend. I hated to do it but I texted him and he called me back quickly (I think he understood my concern). He told me to come to the office on Monday to get swabbed and we would find out for sure if it was Covid. I have in the past had some issues with sinusitis so my doctor prescribed some antibiotics just in case it was a sinus infections. He also gave me a steroid because that was a good thing if it turned out to be Covid. I spent the rest of the day in bed with fever and fever-related issues (body aches, etc.) I was able to get downstairs to watch the Buckeyes with Brenna and Manny. Please understand that we were as smart as we could possibly be around the house during this time of not knowing. All wore masks and stayed 6+ feet apart.
November 1st: This day was pretty much exactly like the day before. I couldn’t keep my fever down so I started taking 2 Tylenol every 8 hours and also taking 2 Motrin on alternating 4 hour shifts. This was generally enough to keep it down around 100.5 or so. I was able to go downstairs to watch the Browns game but as I recall, I spent a lotof time asleep. Body aches and fever just made me want to be asleep.
November 2nd - November 5th: I got up on the 2nd and felt pretty much the same. I drove to the doctor’s office and a nurse came out to the car and swabbed my nose. I felt the same way and used the same treatment regimen of Tylenol and Motrin for the next few days. I mostly slept. I finally got my test results back late in the day on the 5th. I was Covid 19 positive. I was feeling very scared. So much uncertainty and danger. Hopefully I am young and healthy enough to survive this without serious lifelong problems. Hopefully I won’t end up on a respirator. I had so many terrible thoughts racing through my mind at this point. I was unbelievably concerned that I would infect Brenna or Manny and kill one of them. The emotional distress, guilt and anxiety were nearly unbearable.
November 6 - November 11th: My condition continued to decline. The fever became more and more difficult to control. Brenna was a saint! I could have very easily just accepted death at this point but she continued to nurse me and encourage me. I could not have done it without her. When we sent Jake off to college, we were very concerned about Covid and so Brenna bought a couple of pulse oxygen monitors. One for the house and one for Jake to take to school in case he started feeling ill. I monitored my blood ox level very closely and tried to control the fever. I felt AWFUL and most of my time was spent sleeping. There were times when I would feel a little bit better for a few hours but then I would revert back to feeling shitty again. My blood oxygen level was slowly starting to drop and I was doing everything I could to keep it up. My respiratory therapist friend Renee (a saint, by the way) told me to keep using the spirometer that I had brought home from my foot surgery because it would definitely help. I did, I used it and there’s no doubt that it prolonged my time at home before going to the hospital. Ultimately on the evening of November 11th I woke up in the night and couldn’t breathe. I checked my pulse ox and it had dropped to 86 while I was sleeping. It was time to go to the hospital. Brenna loaded me up and hauled me in.
Hospitalization
November 11th: Brenna dropped me off in the middle of the night at the WCH (Wooster Community Hospital) ER. I didn’t realize that this would be the last time I would get to see her face for the next several days or I would have taken a picture or two. My blood ox level was down to 86 and my fever had been getting up to the 102-103 range. The amazing people at WCH ER quickly hooked me up to about a million machines and started to stabilize my oxygen level very quickly. I remember that even as my ox level came back up, the machine continued to beep at me because my breathing rate was too high. It was like I had been jogging and couldn’t catch my breath even though I was just laying there. It was very scary. I got hooked up to an IV and they started drawing blood and doing tests right away. It seemed like they drew about 20 vials of blood and then I was told that the policy is to be redundant so they then started all over again. I have no real idea what all they were testing me for. At this point I just didn’t care. A little while later the radiology folks came in with a machine and gave me a chest x-ray. This confirmed that I had viral pneumonia. At this point the decision was made that I needed to be admitted to the hospital in a regular Covid room. Once I got to my room the regular team of doctors started to come and check me out, talk about my test results and treatment options. First came the hospitalist, she explained my situation and who my team was going to be. Next was the pulmonologist, he explained that Corona isn’t really a lung issue but a circulatory issue and that this was not going to be an easy battle. He ordered a CT scan of my lungs to better assess what was happening in there. Turns out I had a lot of “Covid crystals” and blood clots. They immediately added a blood thinner and blood pressure pill to my medication list. Last came the infectious disease specialist, who explained the disease and the experimental treatment options available including Remdesivir and the convalescent plasma. At this point I was unbelievably tired and just wanted to sleep. I was starting to feel a little relieved because my blood ox level had started to level off.
November 12th: As the doctors came through to check on me, I let them all know that if it wasn’t too late for it to be effective, I want to proceed with both experimental treatment options. They all agreed that it was not too late and that we would get it moving right away. The first thing they had to do was draw some blood to figure out my type. In the afternoon the nurses came in with the first of 5 doses of Remdesivir. It is 250 ml of fluid that gets pumped in through the IV. It was supposed to take about 2.5 hours. I think that is right but honestly I slept most of the time. It really didn’t have any side effects except that i seemed to be a little more thirsty than I was before. The convalescent plasma took a while longer to get. The hospital had to call the Red Cross, who finds some blood with antibodies in my type, then they transport it to the hospital and the lab has to spin it into plasma. It was the evening before they hooked up the plasma to my IV to pump it in. I don’t know if it was the combination of the two drugs or just a side effect of the plasma but my body seemed to go into total shutdown mode that night. I remember tremoring in an almost convulsion-like state throughout the night. I barely slept and the nurses must have been pretty worried about me because they were in there a lotthat night. I really thought about calling Brenna and saying good bye because I felt like there was a good chance I would not live. The nurses were the voice of reason here, thank God, because I can’t imagine how bad that call would have been for Brenna. I continued to just try to sleep and not die the rest of the night.
November 13th - 15th: After a VERY tumultuous night of not much sleep I was very tired and lethargic. My team of doctors came in to check on me and they all talked about how bad that night was. They explained that the convalescent plasma started a battle in my body between good and evil. It was a serious war being waged in there and it was going to take some time to get through. They were right. The plasma jump-started my immune system and the Remdesivir stopped the multiplication of Covid in my body, but at this point, Covid was winning and it was not going to give up without a hell of a fight. I spent the next couple of days feeling REALLY bad. At times i was ready to just go and be done with it. It was absolutely exhausting. My mind raced with fear and anxiety and guilt. Each day I got some blood drawn to keep an eye on my kidney and liver function and every day I got another dose of the Remdesivir. I continued to feel pretty bad. On the plus side, my fever had come under control which was a great sign that my body was winning the war with the virus.
November 16th: I got my last dose of Remdesivir. My fever was staying at bay mostly by itself with just an occasional Tylenol. I was starting to feel like I had turned the corner and would hopefully get to go home at some point soon. I was very relieved!
November 17th: I got to go home today. I can’t explain my relief even though it is clear that I am still in for a long road of recovery. I have to quarantine inside the house away from Brenna and Manny through November 20th and I am still on oxygen. When resting I need about 3L to keep my level stable. When I get up and around to shower and so forth I need to crank it up to 5L. As the blood clots and Covid crystals subside in my lungs I should get off the oxygen. I don’t know how long this will take. Could be days, weeks or months. That first night at home I slept 13 hours. It was clear that I needed a good night in my own bed. My dog was incredibly happy to see me. She snuggled next to me in bed and just licked me for almost an hour. It was clear that she knew something serious was wrong. Dogs are amazing.
November 18th - 19th: I am still quarantined in the bedroom but feeling pretty good. I have a table up here and am able to do some paperwork for a couple of hours at a time and then I lay down and rest for a bit. My bride has been an absolute saint and brings me up water and food and so forth. I know this has been a tremendous pain in her ass and I can never thank her enough for the amazing care she has offered me. I love her more than anything!
While I feel like I most likely will make a full recovery, I am begging each and every one of you to take this thing more seriously. Wear a mask, wash your hands and stay socially distant. I did all of the above and still ended up with it. I have A type blood so I was more susceptible and suffered worse than many will. Don’t take the precautions for yourself if you don’t want but PLEASE take the precautions for other with similar conditions to mine. If I was 70 and got this I probably would have died. PLEASE don’t kill someone just because you don’t know their blood type! Wear the mask, wash your hands and stay socially distant. You could save a life and not know it. Consider yourself a superhero for saving lives, it really does matter!
The People
Now I will talk about the people who helped me deal with COVID-19. This is by farthe most important part of my story!
First, I want to take a minute to address all of my friends, family and loved ones. Loved ones are your loved ones because they love you and you love them back; that being said though, it was unbelievably comforting to me to get all of the many text’s, PM’s and good wishes via social media! It was very difficult to sit in a room by myself for many days without visits from loved ones. The Text’s, PM’s, etc. reallyhelped. Even if it seemed like I was being short with only a thumbs up or a quick “thanks”, all of the wishes helped me survive and I appreciate all of you for doing it!
Second, I want to offer a big thank you to the housekeeping staff, sanitation people, and even the boiler operator who came to my room and fixed my TV before the NFL games on Sunday.
Thirdly, and probably most importantly, THE NURSES. These ladies and gentlemen are SAINTS! They are ROCKSTARS! They are unbelievably over-worked! They are putting their lives and the lives of their families at risk every single day to come in to a job and take care of the unlucky!!! I can never say enough thanks, I can never do enough to repay their service!
Fourth, the doctors: This is a difficult position even for a trained professional. I could sense that they could feel my despair, my anxiety, my loneliness. They too are putting their health and the health of their families at risk every single day. I was lucky enough that my main hospital doctor is friends with my primary care physician. The two of them chatted and thanks at least in part to the fact that my PCP is also my friend, seemed to create a very nice connection between us. It was obvious that she sensed my despair the most. She had also contracted Covid back in April or May and she also has Type A- blood. She also struggled for about three weeks with recovery. She is many years younger than I am and she is in far better physical condition (cross fit nut). She was a breath of fresh air every day. She placed her hand on me every day to reassure me. It really meant a lot. I am forever grateful.
Fifth, my friend and saint Renee. To know Renee is to love Renee! She is the kind of person the world needs more of. She is a respiratory therapist at the hospital so she can kind of covertly cruise around there at will. She brought me pictures of my family, she brought me clean underwear, she brought me good tidings from Brenna. She was Brenna’s eyes and ears to my physical condition. The most important thing Renee brought me though was a hug every time she came to see me. It was the only real human contact I was able to have and even though she looked like she was in a movie scene with all of the PPE, it meant more to me than she could ever know. Every time she hugged me I wept after she left the room. Hell, I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. Thank you, Renee, more that I can ever tell you!
All of these people had a huge impact on me. All of these people risked their health and the health of their own loved ones to take care of me. This is why we need to be so, so diligent right now. Forget about yourself, forget about your own loved ones, think about these health care providers. Let them live, let them stay Covid-free, let them go on about their lives as painlessly as possible. PLEASE, wear the mask, stay socially distant, and wash those hands as often as possible.
Lastly, don’t hesitate to reach out to me with any questions you may have. I am certainly NOT a health expert but if any of my advice can help to settle your nerves, I will be happy to oblige. edbutdorf@gmail.com
Portland, OR
November 24, 2020
He's likely to be very tired for a looong time! It took me a month to get my energy back after pneumonia a few years back. This is way more intense! Prayers for a speedy recovery!
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