Positives

Well, some things are better today and some things are worse. Lets start with the positives, shall we?

Positive #1: Eli got moved to a single room because he’s on “contact isolation”. I can’t really explain why very well, but believe it or not, they got his stool results from the last time he was inpatient (that would be WEEKS ago) and it was positive for some virus, so they put him on contact isolation NOW! It seems crazy, but I was NOT going to complain since that meant we moved out of the room of horrors. Last night didn’t go so well with our roommate. He was up until 3am with all his lights on, and this is no exaggeration, there was a nurse in there helping him or talking to him 95% of the time. He was all alone and couldn’t talk because he was on a vent, so he kept hitting the call button and then writing what he needed to the nurses and arguing with them about his pain medicine not being enough. I think it turns out he was actually more like 20 years old. All I know is that the vent beeping and arguing nurses didn’t make for very ideal sleeping conditions! So the LAST thing I was going to do was argue with why they were putting us in a single room. However, the downfall is that he’s on contact isolation and we have to wear gowns. You guessed it, no little brothers allowed, so we took shifts today!

Positive #2: Eli’s attitude is much better. He was much more awake and alert today (starting at 8am) and hasn’t even taken a nap. He had low platelets and low red blood, so he got two transfusions today. It was nice to start seeing some of our old Eli back. Believe it or not, I actually saw some smiles tonight during a few of Eli’s favorite parts of Evan Almighty. We of course had an interesting conversation about God not actually being Morgan Freeman. 🙂

Positive #3: There is some food going in his mouth and it’s staying there! He’s not eating much by any stretch of the imagination, but he is at least entertaining the idea of food. Also, he was on anti-nausea medicine, so the oral meds (megace) is staying down (so far). Speaking of food, he was supposed to get nutrition today, but despite being told 3-4 times that they were going to get him started, the doctor actually FORGOT to put in the order, so it didn’t get done. The nurse was told to tell Lacey that it was a misunderstanding, but the nurse confessed the doctors just forgot. Lacey asked to speak to the doctor and he said they ordered it, but it came outpatient and they thought the pharmacy would correct it, but they didn’t, so it’ll be here tomorrow. You know me, I’m going to be pretty obnoxious with him tomorrow when I ask about the TPN. 🙂 After all that we’ve been through on him losing weight, you don’t mess with my boy’s nutrition! 🙂

The big negative today is the diarrhea has gotten out of control. Eli is needing the toilet every 5-10 minutes. In the 5 hours that Lacey had him this afternoon, he went 11 times. So far in the 3 hours I have had him, he’s gone about 14 more times. They agreed to put him on another med via IV to help with it, but this could be a very long night if it doesn’t help! They also increased his fluids to make sure he doesn’t get dehydrated! The thing that broke Lacey and I’s hearts was that he kept apologizing for going to the bathroom so much. We kept assuring him it wasn’t his fault. He even told me today, “Daddy, I’m sorry I have to go potty so much. I feel sorry for you because you have to keep taking me.” You could have heard my heart tear from down the hall. He also told me that he really wanted to be “home, home”. The doctors often say he’s “going home” when they really mean he’s going back to the Ronald McDonald House, so he calls our house in Ames our “home, home.” He’s not the only one that misses Iowa, that’s for sure!

Thank you for the message board posts and emails lately. They have been very encouraging and it never ceases to amaze us how faithful people are to pray for Eli every day.