Broadway actor Nick Cordero has lost 65 pounds in the 78 days he has spent in an intensive care unit, his wife, fitness trainer Amanda Kloots revealed in her Instagram Story Thursday. Cordero has been in the hospital since late March and was diagnosed with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. Kloots has kept fans up to date with every step of her husband’s battle with the illness, which has already taken his leg.
Kloots answered questions from fans Thursday, revealing that the former Blue Bloods actor is “so weak that he still can’t move and his muscles are definitely atrophying,” reports Entertainment Tonight. One fan asked Kloots if his doctors wanted Cordero to put the weight back on, but she said that was not easy because he has “lost his muscle.” She continued, “You can’t really gain your muscle back until you can move. So they have him on some high protein, high-calorie food, but he’s got to move.”
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Cordero’s doctors are trying to get Cordero’s blood pressure under control and regulated, Kloots said. His blood pressure is still fluctuating, which could be a sign of an infection, Kloots explained. If there is no infection and doctors can get Cordero’s blood pressure under control, the next step is “intermittent dialysis.” He was “getting a transfusion” at the time Kloots spoke with fans Thursday. Unfortunately, Cordero still cannot speak “because of the ventilator” and is too weak to move, Kloots said. He is communicating with his eyes though, using them to answer yes or no questions. “He is awake and he’s in there,” Kloots said.
Since late March, when Cordero was hospitalized for pneumonia, Kloots has been providing her followers with an unprecedented look at one patient’s fight with the coronavirus. After her husband was hospitalized, Cordero was put in a medically induced coma and was only recently brought out of it. The complications of his illness have included lung infections, needing his leg amputated and having a temporary pacemaker implanted. Earlier this week, she said they received the results of a CT scan and they weren’t the “prettiest.” There were fears he would need a lung transplant, but the CT scan did at least show his lungs are “amazing and they can function.”
Kloots told one fan Thursday that the longer Cordero is in the ICU, the longer he would have to stay in physical rehab afterward. He has a “long road” to travel before he can have a normal life. Kloots cautioned it “could be months” before he is discharged.
On Wednesday, Kloots revealed that their 1-year-old son Elvis took his first steps. She was happy about this but sad that Cordero missed the milestone. “Every day that goes by, I just feel like my heart is just breaking more and more and more,” she said. “Because I think about him laying there and I just am devastated. And I see our little boy, just the cutest little thing, growing up and doing all these firsts and Nick missing them and it’s heartbreaking.”
