This fundraiser is for my son, Joseph "Joe" James, who began this journey at just 27 years old, and is now 28. Unfortunately, Joe, who had no underlying health conditions, or medications, started to feel symptoms the evening of Tuesday, November 23, 2021. The next day (11/24) he tested positive for COVID-19 at home. To be sure, he then went to a local quick care for another test, and it was positive as well. Joe's last day at work was November 23rd 2021. Following the CDC's 10 Day Quarantine Guideline, Joe's condition worsened with shortness of breath, fever, neck pain, and overall weakness. Joe drove to a local hospital on the morning of December 1st, 2021. He was then admitted to the ER with an O2 saturation of 77%. After examination, Joe was then admitted to the ICU unit. During Joe's stay at this ICU unit, he would spend his days and nights alone, per hospital protocol with COVID, until mid-December. During December, he would also be on AirREVO and Hi-Flow Nasal Cannulas and a BiPap machine at night, on oxygen as high as 100% at 60 liters. Despite the high amounts of oxygen, his oxygen saturation would drop as low as 58% and only get as high as 91%. In January, things took a turn for the worst. Joe got a CT scan where doctors found three abscesses on his right lung. After the CT Scan, Joe's right lung collapsed, which led to him being intubated, sedated, and placed on the ventilator on January 9th for the next 147 days until he was liberated from it just on June 4th, 2022. Joe also got a mid-line and chest tube placed as well. On January 15th Joe underwent a surgery called a thoracotomy, which is where the surgeon makes an incision on the back and side of the patient to access the lungs thru the ribs to remove the three abscesses, which were the size of a softball, golf ball, and a ping pong ball. During this time, Joe was heavily sedated and does not remember anything from January 8th to around mid-March. During this period of sedation, he developed a blood infection and internal bleeding. As a result, he had numerous blood transfusions, two new chest tubes, a feeding tube placed in his stomach, and a foley catheter. On February 5th, I received a phone call that I should come to the hospital because he was desatting and his oxygen saturation would not sustain above 20%. This lasted over two hours, and his oxygen improved to only 50-60%, while being on the ventilator, at 100% O2. The hospital encouraged me to call immediate family in to say their "goodbyes." The team of doctors encouraged me to put Joseph into comfort care, as he would be in a vegetative state from the extended time of low O2 stats. The team woke him up slightly to see if he would follow the commands, and he did!!

It wasn't until around 9PM that his O2 stats climbed back into the 80's. Three days later, he was life-flighted with Med-Flight to the James/Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. He started to recover but had developed pneumonia in his left lung again, while battling the right pneumothorax (collapsed lung). The thoracic surgery team had placed 4 Spiration Valves on March 4th, which did not work, and had to have removed days later in a separate surgery. The team also tried gluing Joe's lung to his chest wall using a procedure called pleurodesis, which was extremely painful and did not yield any positive results. The surgery team then recommended going to a larger chest tube, so Joe had another surgery to remove the one original of 3 chest tubes for a larger one to help get fluid out of his lung, which yielded positive results, with his pneumothorax being resolved approximately a month later around May 1st. On May 5th Joe got his last chest tube removed and was discharged to a L-TACH facility 10 days later on May 15th. Joseph is currently in the L-TACH facility. We are working on discharge to Dodd Physical Rehabilitation for approximately another month. He will learn to walk again and learn how to do daily tasks while recovering from severe malnutrition and myopathy, and muscle deconditioning. We are asking for any donation to help with transportation to and from follow up appointments, outpatient rehab when that time comes, and accommodations for when he gets back home, such as, potentially, an at-home oxygen concentrator, a portable oxygen concentrator, walker, cane, shower chair, as well as medications and therapies. Joseph has been in the hospital for 187 days (as of 6/5/2022), including Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's day, his 28th Birthday, St. Patricks Day, Easter, and Memorial Day. I have not worked full-time since December and have spent nearly every day with him in Ontario, as well as 2-hour roundtrips to and from Columbus.

Thank you for taking the time to read Joseph's story. Any donation will be appreciated, and if you cannot donate, please consider sharing this fundraiser and saying a prayer for him.

Thanks so much!