Hey Jim,

I’m sure Julie told you that it looks like Johnny is going round 2 with the bacterial infection. He was off the antibiotics for a little over a day before he spiked a fever. The next day one of his blood cultures came back positive for another gram negative infection. At this point were not sure if it’s the same bug as last time, but we should know within another day or two. Yesterday he was moved down to ICU again since his fever got really high (over 105) and his heart rate was staying up in the 180-190s.

Initially he was pretty bummed because he knew that Peter and Ernie were coming to the hospital, and he didn’t think they would be able to visit him in ICU. Normally that would be the case, but since Johnny is the local celebrity around here they made an exception and let the whole crew come back. There were ten guys in total so Julie divided them up into two groups so everyone would fit in the room. The space in ICU is a lot smaller than upstairs on 9.

The first group back were the Ernie, Justin, Peter, John, and Mario Miller. There was no way Ernie, Justin, and Peter were going to let the other guys go in first. It was cool watching these guys with Johnny because they have a little history now, and it really seems like he is one of them on some level. They really care about him. Ernie gave up his favorite Coke Raybans, and promised to come back and take Johnny skating as soon as he’s up for it. I know everyone is worried about Johnny, but this really seems to be hitting Ernie hard.

These guys were all with Mario on the Circa tour. None of them had met Johnny before, but they all seemed to hit it off. The two guys on the right said the ride Real boards told Johnny they were looking forward to getting on his new deck. That stoked him out a little. Julian was really cool, and very positive. He did not seem the least bit intimidated by the situation, or uncomfortable around Johnny. I’m not sure how old everyone is, but he seems a little younger than the rest, and Johnny really seemed to connect with him. Obviously the glasses were a hit.

Unfortunately Johnny was running a temp of over 104 while these guys were here, so the visits were probably not as long anyone would have liked. All of these guys acted like they would have liked to stay a lot longer, but I think the nurses were getting a little nervous and needed the space in the room to so they could start working on getting Johnny cooled down a little more quickly. Regardless, Johnny had a really good time with everyone. I cannot express my gratitude enough to everyone for making a pretty crappy day a lot better.

Onward,

Mike