Eli's Home

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Elijah was discharged from the hospital this afternoon. He came home with his central line still in place with orders for a daily dose of high powered antibiotic for another three weeks. Elijah's infectious disease specialist (that's right, Eli now has an infectious disease specialist...not a doctor you particularly want to get) believes that we should treat Elijah as though his bone was impacted by the STREP infection. Normally, they would have done an MRI to determine if the bone was or was not infected at the beginning of such an ordeal, but since Eli had a metal rod in his arm, an MRI couldn't be done. So, we're treating worse case scenario.

In my conversation with this disease doc, I mentioned my concern that this is the second time Eli has gone septic with an infection in his blood (first MRSA now STREP). He agreed that was unusual and worthy of further investigation. So, after we survive this ordeal, we will have a new doctor to see to evaluate Elijah for immune deficiency. Please pray his immune system is well and that two blood infections was simply a coincidence.

We are still planning to board a plane next Saturday and head to Florida with David's folks. We'll just take our antibiotic, syringes and gauze with us along with feeding tubes, feeding syringes, his special formula...oh my...I really need to start a list.

Eli is happy to be home! Sophia is thrilled to have her daddy and baby boy home. David is so pleased to get to sleep in his own bed. I'm just glad to return to a more normal routine. Hospital routine for me goes like this: get up, go to work, go to the hospital, go home, go to bed, get up, go to work, go to the hospital, go home, go to bed, get up, etc. It's rough.

Thanks to everyone who helped us through this hospitalization either nearby or far away. Please pray we stay out of the hospital! Please pray that Eli's central line remains infection free.

Eli's wrist is definitely wobbly. Not the word I had hoped to use to describe it. I was hoping for more like "stuck" or "stiff," but we have wobbly. I expect the Shriner's will have to redo the left wrist surgery, which is really disappointing. David's grandma said she bets it hurts us worse than it hurts him. I sure hope that is true.

Good news: Eli weighed in at exactly 16 pounds upon his arrival home. I could attribute that to his 10 ml/hr IV drip while he was in the hospital, but I'm giving God the credit. Pray he keeps that weight on!

Special birthday shout out to second cousin Gavin turning 4 today! Happy birthday!

We'll be in touch.

Love you all,
Melissa

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