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Well, it’s been 9 days of pretty much waiting around for counts to rise, which means 9 days of watching them stay at zero. 🙂 Since our last update, Eli has received two platelet transfusions and one red blood transfusion as those levels continue to drop. Overall Eli feels good, we just need those counts to come up before we can move on to the next step. What is the next step? Head out to NYC and start the process for the bone marrow transplant. As soon as Eli’s counts come up enough for him to be able to leave Blank in Des Moines, we’ll be on our way to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. Eli’s donor is scheduled to get their extraction done December 6th and 7th (good dates to put on your prayer calendars that all goes well there).
Eli did get a bone marrow biopsy done under sedation this morning since it had been 4 weeks since he started chemo. While the peripheral blood has shown no more blasts since chemo, it’s best to check the source (the bone marrow) to make sure we killed of the leukemia before moving on to transplant. He did great as usual and Dr. Rokes got a good sample after having a tough time getting through all of Eli’s scarring from having that procedure done on his poor little back so many times before.
One development that has gone a long way in Eli’s mental health is the fact that Lacey was able to convince the Doctors to give Eli a ‘pass’ to leave the hospital for a little bit each day. It just so happens that he has a break between about 2pm and 6pm where he doesn’t have any medications and isn’t hooked up to the pole, so they agreed to let Eli leave the hospital on the conditions that he avoids very public places and wears his mask when he is out and about. Those precious hours have made all the difference! We get to see more of the Eli we know come out and he makes the most of that free time. We mostly just visit grandparents or parks or something simple, but that’s all it takes to lift his spirits. He did request one more fishing trip, so on a chilly Novemburr afternoon, we were found fishing in a pond in Stuart, Iowa. I said fishing, not catching, because that more accurate describes what we were doing. We did catch a beautiful sunset though.
I have been posting a few pics on Eli’s site at www.elisarmy.com. You can see those pics and messages people post even if you aren’t a member of Facebook, so check it out. Obviously if you have a Facebook account already, feel free to ‘Like’ his page. 🙂
Also, tonight is the last night to express your interest in an Eli’s Army hoodie. Kris will be ordering hoodies based on the sign up lists, she won’t be ordering any extras, so get your names on the list if you want one! Adult and Kid sizes are available in Green here – http://tinyurl.com/42mgtpt Adult sizes only are available in Brown here – http://tinyurl.com/43rsgmr Once they are ordered, we will email you about how you want to pay. You can pay for them online or by mailing a check. We’ll give you details once we have the final list of people who have ordered hoodies. Again, sign up tonight if you’re interested or it might be too late. Thanks to everyone who has signed up!
PS, I don’t know if anyone has installed the Eli’s Army Android app on their smartphone or not, but I know that one cool feature of installing the UppSites app for the iPhone and then ‘favoriting’ Eli’s Army is that within SECONDS of posting these updates, the iPhone notification goes off that there is an update available to read. It’s about the fastest way I can imagine being notified of an update to Eli’s blog! 🙂
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