Amanda Kloots is not giving up on her husband, Nick Cordero, as he reaches his 90th day in the hospital. The personal trainer, who has been positive throughout the Broadway star’s challenging health battle since being diagnosed with the coronavirus, appeared on CBS This Morning on Thursday, where she spoke with Gayle King about the obstacles Cordero will continue to face.
“He is doing OK. He’s stable. Nick’s body is extremely weak. Muscles have atrophied, so he can’t move his body yet,” she explains. “He can still open his eyes, and when he is alert and awake, he’ll answer commands by looking up or down, yes or no questions. When I’m asking him, he will even try to smile or move his jaw. The nurses have all said that he answers my questions the best.”
In order for Cordero to move forward, Kloots thinks her husband will have to undergo a double lung transplant.
“We think that that is most likely the possibility,” she shares. “A 99 percent chance that he would be needing that in order to live the kind of life that I know my husband would want to live… That is a long road away and a lot of things would have to line up in order for Nick to be a candidate for that.”
Kloots adds that she doesn’t “really know” what Cordero knows or understands about his condition. She reveals that she told him about his leg amputation shortly after it happened.
“I told him… and I told him how there’s amazing prosthetics. And I told him that I’ve been talking to amputees and to try to give him encouragement,” she explains.
Throughout the 90-day ordeal, Kloots has tried to stay positive both for her and NIck’s sake.
“I say, ‘You’re going to walk out of this hospital, honey. I believe it, I know you can. … We’re going to dance again. You’re going to hold your son again,'” she says of the couple’s 1-year-old son, Elvis. “My line is, ‘Don’t get lost, get focused.'”
Kloots’ ability to stay positive is impressive considering all she’s faced while supporting her husband.
“They told me four times that he won’t survive. Sometimes even he won’t survive through the night, but he has,” she says with a smile. “I believe, Gayle, that God is the only person that’s going to decide when and if my husband goes. So I will never try to play that role… He’s fighting. I see it every day. Nick’s doctor sees it. And as long as he’s in there and fighting, I’ll continue to fight with him.”
There’s a message that Kloots shares with Cordero daily to give him hope for the future.
“I tell him every day before I leave, I say, ‘OK, here’s what you have to focus on. The two of us sitting in our new house, … Elvis is in bed and we’re listening to ‘Our House’ in our home in Laurel Canyon.”
