Fenton Pastor Doing Well After Contracting COVID-19

In fact, he may be going home today.

In a Facebook post last week on May 8th, the Diocese of Lansing announced that Ryan Riley, an associate pastor at St. John the Evangelist church in Fenton, had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the University of Michigan Hospital with hypoxia and severe dehydration - both side effects of COVID-19.

On Sunday, May 10th, the following message was posted to their page from Pastor Riley's personal Facebook:

Sorry for not responding to the texts and phone calls. My lack of energy gets me. There have been so many it has been extremely touching to me! I love you all.

Not much has changed. My temp just spiked to 103 again, I can’t say that I have an appetite, and I’m trying to suppress the cough. And, my chest X-ray showed a lot of pneumonia yesterday. They did sign me up for the Remdesivir clinical trial and I had the first dose of that this afternoon. Please keep praying for me!

On Monday, he reported to his Facebook followers that he had been fever-free for 24 hours and was on Remdesivir for two days. However, his pneumonia was still "quite bad" and he was coughing a lot. He asked for continued prayers for himself, the staff at U of M hospital and his fellow clergy.

Yesterday, the Diocese of Lansing posted the following SUPER GREAT update:

Fingers crossed that Father Riley will get to go home to recover today! This is the good news that we needed to hear today.