We All Fall Down

Once again daily life has made it very challenging to update Elias' blog. We went the entire month of February without a single post. We apologize for this lack of updates. We have been quite busy, in a good way mostly. There is really so much going on and we will be touching on many of those items in a future update. Today's update is about Elias' first real accident. As you know, Elias has spent a great deal of his life in a hospital, emergency room and doctor appointments. He has been taken by ambulance several times and has frightened us all with rapid on sets of medical issues. Every system of this child's body is affected in some way by this disease. Today we had to take Elias to the emergency room, not because of his Fanconi Anemia or any of the major health problems it has caused, but because Elias is a child. He took a really hard tumble while playing chase on the kitchen floor. He was running full speed and hit an area rug just right, tripped then went head first into the ground.

 

This photo was taken a few minutes after the tumble. It looks much worse that it actually was. The gash on the forehead did not require stitches, in fact it was merely superficial. That was a relief. We decided to take him in to get checked out simply because of all the issues he has. The doctors agreed we made the best decision and praised us for not just letting it go, especially with Elias non-clinical/symptomatic history. The area in which he hit also is the least likely to cause hematomas as it is the hardest area of the skull. While the ER doctors were pleased with Elias' responsiveness and overall appearance they still wanted the FA/BMT team to confer. Platelets are always a concern. After some blood work we were happy to see that his platelet count has gone up 20 points from the last check. Since the seizure he had been lower and was slowly trending down. Given the circumstances of the day we were quite happy to hear that positive news. With the platelets looking well and Elias responding a head CT was deemed unnecessary. Thank God! We were. Sent home shortly afterward. After Elias was cleared as not being in any danger the doctors all chuckled at the reason we were there, given his very "impressive and extensive" medical history and surgeries. It was odd to be there for something almost any other child could be there for. We will take that and chalk this up to a new experience.

All in all it was pretty frightening and thankfully looked worse than reality proved it to be. Elias was back to his old self pretty quickly. We were trying to keep him low-key, as recommended by the doctor, but not Elias! He would have no part in that. He was back to running around and playing with us shortly after we returned home. I suppose a child who has had over 30 surgeries would think nothing of a bump on the head. What a little trooper. We appreciate all the continued thoughts and prayers for our little guy. He is still cute as can be, even with that bump! We will leave you with a photo we were able to get this evening as he played. Willie the expression on his face isn't too happy, don't let him fool you. He was quite content and having fun.