Elias ER Update

The bad news first, Elias was admitted to the hospital tonight. He is doing well and Katharine is staying with him overnight as they allow one parent to stay during that time. I came home to update the world on Elias and take care of Rusty, Elias' furry brother. The decision to hospitalize him was more a precautionary measure. Unfortunately the lab work, which was drawn twice, clotted both times, so no CBC could be done. Since there are no clinical numbers for the doctors to reference, they must observe Elias to get a feel for what is going on. While in the ER with the doctor examining him, Elias had another very rapid and large episode, violently vomiting time after time with little to no pause in between. Breast milk appeared for the first time in the trach, which then sent up the red flags about aspirations. Since then there has not been a repeat of this in the trach, but there have been more episodes of emecis. We believe that in that specific episode there was so much volume in lightening succession that Elias was simple trying to catch a breath, causing it to get into the trach. None the less, with Elias' medical issues you do not take chances with potential aspiration. That can lead to some extremely dangerous illnesses and problems.

The good news is two-fold. First, this is only our second hospitalization since Elias came home and for all intents and purposes, the first "serious issue" hospitalization, even though it is not definite there is anything seriously wrong with him. He could have a strong upper respiratory infection or GI bug that can be cleared up with treatment. Secondly, Elias is in as good a spirit as you would expect. While he is lethargic and not quite himself, he does manage to smile now and again, and that lets us know that he is going to lead them, as usual, to the source of the problem and get it fixed. So overall, we feel concern, but it is not overwhelming concern. Hopefully, this will be a very brief stay. We will let you know what we discover tomorrow. Thank you all for the well wishes, thoughts, and prayers today. Elias has a lot of wonderful folks out there praying and thinking about him, and we certainly appreciate those thoughts.

We do have a good update pending about Elias' great grandparents, great aunt G and cousin who visited us yesterday from the sunshine state. We have some photos to share and especially photos of Elias' incredible new curtains!! We will share that story once things return to normal. So something to look forward to!!