Over the Weekend

We know everyone has been anxious to know how Elias has been doing. He is improving, but very slowly. He was moved out of ICU yesterday, so that is a good sign. He is still in a great deal of pain and he has needed pain meds and valium every 2 hours. He will not cuddle with his teddy or blankets and does not want to be touched in any fashion, even by us. He pushes us away, literally. It is very sad to see. Thankfully the meds are keeping him asleep most of the time so that he can rest somewhat comfortably and heal. Elias hemoglobin has also been dropping since his emergency surgery on Friday night. It was 6.9 this morning, so a blood transfusion was ordered. The cultures from Friday all came back negative, which is positive. There really isn’t an explanation for the spiking and falling fevers. The surgeons say that nothing was infected inside so those types of fevers are not something they would expect. He has not spiked since yesterday morning when he hit 102 and has gone down slowly since. We have also needed to keep him on oxygen since the surgery, not too much thankfully, only 28% to help his tired healing body. He also has taken a huge hit to his platelet count. Before surgery it was 200, today it is 90. Elias FA doctor came in to see him and she is concerned by that drop in conjunction with his hemoglobin drop. It is something she is going to be watching very closely. They do not appear to want to take action unless he continues to drop down to 50. We imagine a platelet transfusion might be in order at that point.

As for when the heck we might be able to get him out of here, we have not been able to get anyone to even discuss the next step, which after stabilizing should be feeding. No idea on when that will start or how long it will take once we begin. This has certainly been a much rougher road than we could have ever expected. We are holding up as well as can be expected. There is obviously some disappointment, but as we said before the important thing is that Elias is safe. We appreciate everyone’s thoughts, prayers and support.