Did you see the picture on the main page? That’s a pretty good representation of how Eli has been feeling since yesterday afternoon when the NG tube was removed. He is a completely different kid than we have seen over the past several weeks. The old Eli is back! Funny what clearing out a belly full of infection will do for a guy. Over the past several days, Dr. Kayton has been cleaning out the gauze and enough infected material has been absorbed to prepare him for the vac! So tomorrow, they will install the wound vac to help the healing process go quickly and smoothly. The vac will have to be changed with a smaller sponge next Mon, Wed, & Fri, so we are definitely going to be here through next Friday. Dr. LaQuaglia should be back next week and it’s Dr. Kayton that will then be out of town. We’ll also need to make sure that Eli is eating ok and his bowels are working as they should be (they were just starting to work right before we went into surgery this week and he still has good bowel sounds).
Eli has been wanting to play, do activities, go to the playroom and tease his nurses. It’s SO good to see. Things could go downhill a little bit after the vac is installed if it hurts or doesn’t help as we expect, but from what we’ve been hearing, it’s supposed to be a really great tool to help the body heal. So hopefully this is the light at the end of the tunnel we were praying for! The timing of Eli feeling better is just about perfect because late last night, Eli’s buddy Griffin (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/griffinschager) was admitted to the 9th floor with a neutropenic fever. Eli was so excited that Griffin was coming. Even though we don’t like that they have to be here, we are sure glad that Eli and Griffin can spend some time together now. Griffin’s parents said, “Well if you couldn’t come back to the Ronald to see us, we’ll just come to you.” 🙂 They ended up only a few doors down from us. I know a lot of Griffin’s supporters (members of the elite Team G-Force) have jumped on board to also serve as Prayer Warriors in Eli’s Army and we are so thankful to have them.
We are praying this infection stays away and Eli’s stomach heals up nicely so we can get back to the 3F8 world. Thanks as always for all of your prayers. I’ll leave you with a slideshow of G and E from this past April in Central Park and Midtown during the NFL Draft.
Also, thanks again to everyone that contributed to the Band of Parents. In just a few short days, you managed to bump Eli’s fundraising page for the Band of Parents to the 9th highest fundraising page on the entire Change.org website! Currently, 43% of the funds raised for BoP on Change.org came from Eli supporters, so thank you all for your support of this organization.
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