Released to the Ronald!

We’re out! This morning went really well. At around 8:30am, the nurse told me that everything was cleared and that we could leave whenever Eli was up and around. He had received his last steroid dose via IV, so we didn’t have to continue that, which meant there were no prescriptions or anything to send us home with! We decided to let Eli wake up on his own (he slept really well last night thanks to a dose of Tylenol + Codine), so we ended up leaving around 10:30am. Eli had no shortage of arguments for our day nurse this morning. She is so good with him and we really liked her (we were fortunate to have 2 great nurses this time at the PICU). It was amusing to see them fight like an old married couple. 🙂 At one point she said she needed to deaccess his port and he said, ‘You are NOT deaccessing me.” She said, “Well then who is going to do it?” He paused for a second and then said, “My dad!” Sure enough, I had to deaccess him while the nurse watched. 🙂

So after the easiest and best hospital discharge we have EVER experienced, Eli’s mood really improved and we walked back to the Ronald where we have been the rest of the day. He took a nap, but now he is up playing with his Nintendo DS. He has really been eating a lot (thanks to the steroids), which of course is a good thing. Before we left they said that Dr. Souweidane wanted to see Eli again on March 9th as a follow up to check on his work. So until the pathology report comes back with the explanation of what it was that Dr. Souweidane took out of Eli’s head, we wait. Hopefully it will come within the next few days. Once the report is in, we’ll get the plan of attack from the Neuroblastoma team and dive right in!

I might sound like a broken record, but it is so amazing to have such great support from you all. People are always thanking me for doing these updates and for setting up the surgery blog, but I truly believe it’s the LEAST I could do for everyone that is faithfully praying for Eli and sending us messages of support. Since sharing the news that Eli had a new “spot” on his brain, we have received 702 Message Board posts, over 150 Facebook messages, 78 new Facebook friends, and dozens of e-mails from all over the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, India, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Nepal (those are the ones I know for sure). It keeps assuring us that God is definitely using this situation for His glory and we are honored to be a part of that. We never would have imagined that the amount of support that we would receive would be so massive, but it has been very encouraging to us. We also know that God is pleased with His people’s response and it shouldn’t surprise us one bit when Eli’s surgery goes so well or that he recovers so quickly!
Don’t forget to keep checking the ongoing New York City photo album I’m adding to every day or two!

NYC