Friday, 11:05 am

Hey there, all. This morning John is about the same. We tried to get him up this morning to walk, but when he stood up his blood pressure tanked to about 75/35 so that didn't go too well. So at least he is sitting up in a chair right now which is better than being in the bed. We'll see how he is doing later or tomorrow and try walking. They are trying to keep him a little bit dehydrated since that makes it easier to breathe and helps with the fluid in his lungs, but they held the diuretic today since his blood pressure dropped so much. When he is sitting all of it looks good, so he just has to take it slower. Breathing is about the same, so at least it isn't worse. The CT scan was negative yesterday, mostly they were looking for anything to explain this, maybe a blood clot, but couldn't find anything.

Nutrition has become a big issue, but he is trying. It's just awfully hard to breathe and eat at the same time, and breathing is a lot of work. He's gotten awfully skinny and didn't have a whole lot of wiggle room there. But he drank 2 high protein juice drinks so far today, and that is good. He of course isn't hungry at all and can't stand the milky or creamy kinds of drinks so it gets a little hard to manage. A big hamburger would be just the thing, but chewing is too hard to do and takes too long away from breathing, plus they don't want to take the chance of him aspirating something into his lungs.

I know I keep thanking all of you, but I don't know how else to let you know how much we appreciate all of the good thoughts and prayers.