Nick's Wife Positive He Will Wake Up From Coma After Leg Amputation

The past few weeks have indeed been the toughest you can imagine for Nick Cordero and especially wife Amanda Kloots. From being diagnosed with coronavirus to having his leg amputated to still being in a coma, as difficult as it must be for Cordero, it has been for Kloots.

Kloots, on Thursday made an appearance on CBS This Morning, during which she opened up to co-host Gayle King about her husband's experience with COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

"We didn't think it was COVID, yet it was weird that he was sick at the time when this was all happening. So, we took him to the urgent care and they said its pneumonia," Kloots said of when the actor first started feeling sick. "In fact, we were saying in the car, this is the only time that you're kind of like, 'Woo! It's pneumonia!'"

Though they were relieved, Kloots said that Cordero "just kept getting worse." At the advice of a doctor friend, they sought a second opinion at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

"This is one of the saddest parts. We thought I would see him in two hours. I said, 'Call me when you want me to come and pick you up.' And, so, I didn't even give him a kiss or a hug because we were also kind of self-isolating from him because we have this 10-month-old baby," Kloots recounted. "And I got a call from Nick in about an hour and he said, 'Amanda, they have admitted me. I'm now in a bed with oxygen. They'll know some things in a couple hours. Go home and I'll call you in a couple hours.'"

That's when Kloots began to worry, she said. She didn't hear from Cordero until the next day, when he told her that doctors wanted to put him on a ventilator. "In the meantime, [doctors] said, 'We want to start some of the COVID medicines.' And they did the deep COVID chest scrape and it came back positive," said Kloots. "He started to get better and we had plans to take him off the ventilator."

Just as Cordero — a Broadway actor best known for his roles in such shows as Waitress and Rock of Ages — turned a corner, he experienced a serious setback. Cordero is currently in a medically induced coma following a leg amputation, which needed to be performed due to complications that resulted from his battle with COVID-19. Prior to the amputation, Cordero struggled with blood clots while on a ventilator and ECMO machine, which is used to help oxygenate the blood.

"He's a dancer, he's an actor, he's a performer. It was not an easy decision to make," Kloots said of the amputation.

According to Kloots, there were plans for medical staff to wake Cordero on Thursday. "Today was supposed to be putting in a trach and feeding tube," she said. "Unfortunately, this morning, his blood count was really, really low. Low blood count can mean that he's internally bleeding from somewhere. So now we have to wait."

Though Cordero's recovery has been difficult, Kloots told King that she remains optimistic. "I feel like there is an army of people behind him, behind us and I just believe — I get chills saying it — I just believe that he will wake up," she said.