From the journal of James Cohen, June 18

June 18, 2017

     Well, I don't think Brad is going to make it. We ended up giving the antibiotics to him starting on the 16^th, but they've not helped at all. His lungs are full and he wheezes with every breath. They rattle and sound like wet cotton sometimes, well, most of the time. His lips are even getting a little bluish today. His eyes are sunken into his head and he's lost at least 15 pounds because he can't keep anything down and Jackie has been having to give him IV's to keep him hydrated. Plus, his fever just stays around 102 degrees and he just shivers and shakes, even though he has eight blankets on him, plus a sleeping bag below and one on top of the blankets.

     Jackie is really tired and looks exhausted. She's been taking care of Brad and it's become a full time job. She has to turn him on his side when his breathing gets really bad and has even had to use some of Esther's left over oxygen when his coughing and breathing have been at their worst.

     The rest of us have just been hanging around. We stay outside during the day because it's too hard to watch Brad dying. The barn has become the place where everyone sits. We found some old crates and have been using them as chairs. The weather has been nice and it keeps all the elderly people away from Brad but not stuck in the RV.

     Ginger told us about her childhood and watching her mother, younger sister and younger brother dying of tuberculosis. She talked about how it was similar because they made the same wheezing and gagging sounds when their lungs filled up. She spoke about being poor and how now is kind of like then because everything is missing, like extra's and non essential stuff like candy or fresh foods.in

Ginger's little sister

     Walter and Ralph brought up experiences with family members getting pneumonia and having trouble breathing. Walter lost a sister and Ralph lost an uncle to pneumonia before there were hospitals in the rural areas they grew up in.

     Marvin talked about watching two of his grandparents, both his parents and a sister and brother all die of tuberculosis. They all suffered and he watched all of them as a child, knowing he might end up just like them. He said it was terrifying and is the same now because there are no doctors or hospitals or a lot of the medicines we used to take for granted.

     Brenda, the former receptionist from the Care Home, told a story about having pneumonia when she was a child and getting taken to the hospital when it was almost too late. They had to use long needles to drain the fluid in her lungs and pack ice around her to lower her fever. She told us about how it felt to almost not be able to draw a breath. How the lungs feel like they're full of wet cotton and how you can feel the air bubble when you breath. How scary it is to breath but not get enough oxygen.

     Jackie took a break at lunch and we talked about how Brad could've gotten sick. He wasn't bit, he didn't go somewhere by himself, so we all were exposed to the same areas as him. Did he have something inside him that made him sick? Like a tumor or a mutation or something? We're going to have to keep a close eye on everyone to make sure no one starts to have symptoms. If we're lucky, it will stop with Brad, although, I can't really call it lucky. But if we're not, it will spread to someone else and then we could be screwed.

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