Broadway star Nick Cordero has been battling COVID-19 in the intensive care unit of a Los Angeles hospital for 56 days, and in that time, he has "defied the odds" his wife, fitness trainer Amanda Kloots, told her Instagram followers Tuesday.
For almost two months, Cordero has been "fighting so hard" to get better, she said, despite facing multiple complications along the way.
Calling Cordero "a fighter," Kloots added that she "can't imagine how exhausted he is, and how tired his body is," and said that his drive to get better has been an inspiration to her.
"Nick has literally defied odds and I think there's something to that. You don't go through all of this to not make it through all of this," she said. "I think about how tired and exhausted he must be, and it helps me to be like, 'OK, if he can do it, I can do this.' I can keep fighting. I can keep hoping. I can keep cheering him on. I can keep singing."
"So we are fighting, fighting, fighting every day," she continued. "Never giving [up]."
Cordero, who appeared in Broadway's "Waitress" and "Bullets Over Broadway," went to the Cedars-Sinai emergency room on March 30 for what he believed was pneumonia. He was admitted to the hospital and later tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus. To help his breathing, the 41-year-old actor was put into a medically-induced coma.
"He didn't have a fever. He didn't have a cough. He had a sense of smell, he had a sense of taste, so we really didn't think it was COVID, especially his no preexisting conditions," Kloots told "Good Morning America" earlier this month. "Very shortly, after about only two days, he was on a ventilator."
In April, doctors amputated Cordero's right leg after blood thinners used to help with clotting caused other problems, Kloots said. She also said that his lungs have been "severely damaged" by the virus, and during his time in the hospital, he has battled multiple infections. Although some days have been tougher than others, over the weekend, Kloots told her Instagram followers in one of her daily video updates that "day by day, hour by hour, he is getting better."
"We're just hoping that he can come off some more medications and that his settings on machines can come down," she said. "Right now, we're just looking for slow, steady, small wins to keep him resting and recovering, which is great."
Kloots, Cordero and their 11-month-old son Elvis recently moved from New York City to Los Angeles so that Cordero could star in a West Coast production of "Rock Of Ages," which he also starred in on Broadway. A GoFundMe account recently set up by friends to help Kloots and Cordero cover medical bills and make their new home in Los Angeles wheelchair-accessible has raised over $500,000.
Editor's Note: This story has been corrected to show that Cordero went to the emergency room on March 30, not March 31.
