I will try my best to do daily updates on Carrie. If I miss a day or so, please forgive me. But know this, no news is always good news in this situation.

Carrie is stable, and continuing a slow progression forward in healing. Her oxygen supplementation has been lowered to 55% now, down from 100% when she was first put on the ventilator two days ago. They also lowered the pressure that the ventilator gives, down to a level of 18 pressure support. That number is still very high, but a downward trend is encouraging. Today I asked what the criteria was for when she can come off the ventilator, and they told me they wanted to see an oxygen supplementation of 30% and a pressure level of less than 8 pressure support. Carrie obviously isn’t there yet, but she’s heading in the right direction. I then asked about how long they would expect her to be on the ventilator considering her current rate of progression. The nurse told me that they will continue to decrease her oxygen supplementation as she tolerates it. The expect to see a reduction of pressure support at the rate of 2-4 per day. In total, with no further devastating complications, she may be off the ventilator in as little as a week. Please keep in prayer for no more complications!

Her kidney report is not as great. Her kidneys are only functioning at about 10%, and they will need to do dialysis to give her kidneys a break. This doesn’t surprise her doctors, kidney complications are common with Covid. Add to that, Carrie has autoimmune conditions and she’s 19 weeks pregnant, its unavoidable that her kidneys would struggle in this situation. Her kidney function was good when she went into the hospital, and doctors are confident that in time, her kidneys will heal. They will do dialysis on her for the next few days. On Sunday, they will stop and evaluate how her kidneys are functioning before determining the need for continued dialysis.

But in better news, Jeremiah is doing just fine. His heart rate is good, his growth rate is appropriate, and he’s a feisty little acrobat on the ultrasounds. Please pray that he is protected from the many, many medications that they have given to Carrie to help save her life.

As for mom, she is stable and not declining, but not improving much either. She is on a normal medical floor at that hospital, on oxygen, awake, and a bit bored. But she is still plagued by difficulty breathing. Please pray that the treatments they are giving her kick in and begin to take effect. And absolutely pray that she sees some improvement and can come home soon.

I had Covid right alongside Mom and Carrie. I was sick too. But for me it never felt like anything more than a sinus infection and headache. I never had a fever, and I never had any problems breathing at all. I lost my sense of taste and smell for a solid day and a half, but it came right back. I have been symptom free for a few days now, with no lingering effects. Perhaps with the exception of exhaustion, which could also be explained by my stress level and lack of sleep.

Please pray for no complications with Carrie or Mom. Pray for supernatural healing and miraculous recovery. Pray for me as I navigate all these medical decisions. Pray that God protects and restores our family. Pray that sometime, somewhere, somehow, I can get some rest.

Thank you again to you all who are keeping me going, keeping me sane, encouraging and praying with me. Thank you to all of those who have stepped up to serve our family, provide meals, and be there for comfort. I simply couldn’t do this without you. Know that you all are very loved and appreciated.

Hi Friends and Family, I hope I have been able to reach out to as many of you as possible by phone or text, so please bear with me if I’ve missed giving you updates.

If you haven’t heard, Carrie is in the hospital ICU with Covid pneumonia. Yesterday she was placed in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator.

This was largely a precautionary measure for Carrie, and we were able to decide to do it together while she was awake. The reason was that she was having a very hard time using the bipap mask. She was reacting to the steroids having panic attacks, and her respiration rate was peaking out at 50 breaths a minute. Her oxygen saturation was holding on the mask, but it wasn’t sustainable for her to continue working that hard to breathe. So she was placed on the ventilator to give her a break. She went on the ventilator yesterday at around 3:00pm or so. When she did, they set her respirations at 22 per minute and her oxygen level went higher than its been since she’s been in the hospital – 96-97+%.

On the ventilator today, they have been slowly titrating her oxygen levels down. When I spoke to the nurse a few moments ago, Carrie had titrated from 100% oxygen down to 60% oxygen, while maintaining the same oxygen saturation level. So, she’s definitely moving in the right direction. The goal was today to attempt to reach 50%, at which point they can begin to move from fully assisted breathing to partially assisted. This would mean that Carrie is starting to breathe on her own again.

So far, they have been checking the baby every day. Every day he is lively, healthy, and has a good heart rate, praise God! Spoiler alert: yes, our baby is a boy. His name is Jeremiah Allen.

The only minor complication so far has been that her kidney function is declining. This is most likely due to her autoimmune conditions, her pregnancy, and the drugs they’ve given her to help her lungs. There is no permanent damage, but if her kidney blood values don’t turn around soon then they may do dialysis on her until her kidneys catch up. They will test her blood values again in the morning before making that decision.

I have hopefully updated you all on Mom as well, she went to the ER this morning having the same shortness of breath, also from Covid pneumonia. So far she is still in the ER awaiting a bed on a medical floor. She is on oxygen and her saturations are good. She will likely be there for a few days as they monitor her and help her try to regain a little more lung function.

I apologize for the impersonal Facebook updates, but I’m falling short of keeping everyone updated by text and phone calls. Please feel free to continue to reach out or ask questions, you all have been such an incredible support for me and my family. We truly appreciate every word of encouragement, prayer, and the many, many acts of service that you all have shown us.

Please continue to keep Carrie and Mom in your prayers. We are definitely not out of the woods yet. But God has been gracious and we have felt His healing hand over us.

Prayer warriors, please keep praying. Carrie is in need of our prayers. Today, her doctors recommended that she be put on a ventilator in a medically induced coma as a precaution for her and our baby. She was having a hard time with anxiety, largely as a reaction to the steroids that she was given to help her lungs function. Also because of her pregnancy, she requires more oxygen than normal for the baby. All of that was causing breathing to be a lot of work for her, and she was becoming very physically exhausted.

Prior to intubation and ventilation, her respiratory rate was as high as 50 breaths per minute at around 90-95% oxygen saturation. This was as she was on a bipap respirator – a machine that she did not tolerate well. On the ventilator, they were able to increase her oxygen saturation to 100% while decreasing her breath rate down to 22 breaths per minute.

I don’t believe that her lungs are continuing to deteriorate at this time. Her doctors and nurses agree that she has been improving, other than the physical exhaustion of breathing through the bipap machine. The bipap was doing its job, Carrie just struggled with the mechanics of how it worked for her. Because of that, it simply wasn’t as effective as it would have been otherwise.

I ask you to join me in intercessory prayer for Carrie and our unborn son, Jeremiah Allen. She is 19 weeks along now. Pray for guidance as we navigate the medical system, and this horrible disease. Pray for mom who is at home fighting it as well. And pray for me, because as much as I want to leave this all at God’s feet, I’m simply unprepared to lose my wife and son or imagine life without them.