A Virginia man hospitalized with leukemia and separated from his family got a closeup moment with them that he says is the miracle he’s needed.
Jim Lloyd, 74, of Herndon hasn’t had family by his side for one of the most difficult times, only able to look down at them in the parking lot from his eighth-floor room at Virginia Hospital Center, a tragic side effect the coronavirus pandemic.
"We're real huggers and haven't been able to do that," Lloyd said.
He started feeling sick late last year and took test after test. In April, doctors called.
"I need to tell you that he has acute leukemia, and it was just like the bottom fell out,” said his wife, Babette Lloyd. “I had no idea. It was just such a shock."
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The diagnosis is made worse because she can't be by her husband's bedside.
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"You do get some lonely times and you get those times when you just feel like you're all by yourself," she said.
Jim Lloyd is kept company by the nursing staff and more paintings by his grandkids than there is room on the wall.
This week, he felt well enough to leave the room and get face to face with his wife and family through a window.
"Up to the glass, that was practically a miracle," he said.
It will be a few weeks before he’ll know how well chemotherapy worked, but in many cases, doctors say acute myeloid leukemia is treatable, even curable, with chemo.
