Welcome Spring!

*PLEASE READ*
Everyone, we'll do the best we can with keeping everyone up-to-date on this blog. Please share this with whom you believe may be interested or concerned with John's progress.

Please also understand that as the family looks forward to, and celebrates, each small milestone that John meets, he is still very, very sick. His doctors are working diligently and aggressively to both remove him from the ventilator And keep his progress on target for his treatments to get better. I hope everyone can undestand how difficult it is for someone to be under so much pressure. John is both very worn out with his treatment and extremely susceptible to illness due to his depressed immune system.

With that, the family and hospital suggest he receive a very limited amount of visitors - restricted to family - until he improves further and is successfully taken off the ventilator. Any exceptions would need prior approval from the family - you may contact me if needed, to relay any requests to the immediate family. We all realize how important John is to everyone. Please post your comments to this blog, or send John a note of encouragement, etc.

As for an update for today - As stated, the doctors at Roanoke Memorial are aggressively trying to reduce his dependence on the ventilator. Once this is complete, John will receive a kidney biopsy to give them the best status of and damage to his kidneys. But he will need to be breathing on his own to do this. Also reported earlier was that his plasma treatments would be reduced to every-other-day, but we learned today they will wait for this and he'll receive the treatments daily. We haven't received today's chest xray results yet, but his breathing progress has been hampered the last two days. We're hopeful to see some improvement in this area very soon.

Everything else is still day-to-day and simply wait to see how he progresses. As noted, Please consult with me or the immediate family before visiting.

Thanks so much to everyone thus far. Please continue to keep John in your thoughts and prayers.

Best Regards,
Bob
bobhopkins@mac.com
540.998.9372