Eli Has Heart: August 2009

I Have Confidence!

Posted in August of 2009

"I have confidence." On of my favorite songs.

Today, this is my version:

"I have confidence in sunshine/ I have confidence in rain/ I have confidence that spring will come again/ Besides what you see I have confidence"

that Matt will do well on the GMAT today!

in my mom taking care of Isaac!

in Eli's doctors!

that we may return home tomorrow or the next day!

"I have confidence in confidence alone/ Besides which you see I have confidence in me."

Here are some photos of this past week's events:

Isaac playing in the water fountain in front of Primary Children's.

Your only a kid once, right?

Isaac learned how to play FoosBall, and LOVED it!

And we took him to the zoo.

Holding my boy for the first time! (Thursday afternoon)

A Daddy/Son moment.

A Doc that is pretty cool.

This is when we knew the Eli we love was back:

Instead of eating, he loves to bite down on the bottle.

His PICU room, and all the works.

Our Happy Boy!

The moment we have been waiting and waiting for happened today. Eli is now out of the PICU and healthy enough to be on the "floor." Meaning, his recovery at the hospital is almost overand we will be able to return home soon.

We thought we would be going on Friday, however Eli's ventricle (the lower chamber of the heart) started to not pump as well. He looked very sick, and was not eating enough to keep himself hydrated. (I didn't post any pictures of that day. They are hard for me to look at.) After some medication change they felt he was recovering, but kept him in the PICU just for some more observation.

Eli will be getting a Heart Echo tomorrow, and if all is well we might be able to go hometomorrow afternoon or Wednesday. Hooray!

The two week old boy named Tucker is doing remarkably well. However they will still need to stay here 4 to 6 weeks! Because he went into heart failure before they could get him here, his kidney's, and a few other things were a bit damaged. But the surgery went well on Wednesday, and hopefully they will be able to hold him soon. Because of the nature of his surgery his chest was kept open--but still bandaged--and that was closed yesterday. Soon he will come off the breathing machine. Parents are doing better, and taking it one day at a time. His defect isHLHS.

A Quick Eli Note

Posted in August 2009

All of Eli's chest tubes are gone. So now we get to hold him! HOORAY! And he has just one IV. It is awesome. He is just so much more comfortable and so much more happy. He actually smiled today! A lot at Matt, because Daddy just makes the funniest faces!

He will be transfered from the PICU to the SCU (surgical care unit) tomorrow if everything continues this well. We hope that means that we get to come home early next week. All considered everything is going great.

And every nurse and doctor are in love with Eli. He is known as the one with the long eyelashes. He is a beautiful baby.

The baby boy named Tucker is doing really well. I found out a bit more of their story:

They actually brought him home thinking he was a healthy baby boy, then three days later he was sweaty, fussy, unwilling to eat, and taking short-fast breaths. They rushed him to the Rexburg hospital just in time. It took 6 hours to stabilize him. They then boarded a plane and flew here to SLC. When they got to the PICU they were unsure if he was going to make it through the night. They said if they waited 30 more minutes to take him to the Rexburg hospital he would not have survived. He had his surgery yesterday, and is doing really well. The nurse yesterday kept saying that he was "a really really sick baby" when he got here. His heart defect deals with the left side of the heart (Eli's defect is in the right side). His aorta is really small and ill-developed, constricting the blood flow to the body (Eli's problem is too much blood flow to the lungs).

An Eli Heart Update

Posted in August of 2009

Here are some photos of this past weeks events

Saturday, two days before the surgery.

Eli loving his two fingers.

Can you believe his hair?

My parents came in from Bama on Sunday.

As a family we have secretly been keeping something from my dad:

He is going THE FINAL FOUR!

To attend is his ultimate sports dream.

We purchased 2 "lottery" positions in March, but didn't find out till last Monday if we got them (and we did!). So we had to tell him 5 months before his 50th birthday, cause we can't keep a secret this big!

He freaked out. Shook, teared up, the works!

Monday, right after getting out of surgery.

Incredible nurses. Wow. They are Incredible.

All those green machines are giving Eli medicine.

Blood pressure, prompting him to pee, morphine, etc.

Incredible nurses, as I said.

Eli is doing well. He may be transfered off the PICU floor (hooray!) and to the SCU (surgical care unit) today.

He currently has oxygen and hates the thing on his nose. When ever he has awake moments he makes a grab for it. He is now able to eat a bit of formula every few hours and seems much happier with something on his tummy. The swelling has gone down a lot!

Thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate the support and love each and every person has given us.

This was the surgery I was MOST worried about. It is a lot for a little person to handle, and Eli is doing amazingly well. And we have to contribute that to everyone's faith.

We know Heavenly Father is watching us and is blessing us in amazing ways.

Please keep another family in your prayers. Tucker was born a week and a bit ago to a young couple IN Rexburg. They did not know that he had a MAJOR heart defect, and right after he was born he was life flight-ed to Primary Children's. His surgery is today. This is the couple's first baby and you can tell that they are completely overwhelmed.

And we love the 50 mm lens! Most of the pictures were taken by it.

Surgery Day - Abridged

Posted in August 2009

This is going to be brief:

Eli's surgery went really well! After the check in and such, he was taken around 7:30am and finished around 1pm. Waiting was torture! But they kept us informed through nurses and such quite frequently. We were able to see our little boy a half hour after he checked in to PICU.

He is still under and on the breathing machine. Everything looks great, and his pain is under control. Lots of family is here for our support. Both sets of grandparents (our parents) are here and looking after us and Isaac.

This is just a short post, more later with some pictures to follow...

An Eli Update

Posted in August 2009

Well, we have been here in SLC since Thursday evening. Things are going well. Currently we are chillin' in the Ronald McDonald House, in our amazing room. Love this place.

Eli's cardio cath went well yesterday. We checked in at 8am, and they started the process at 9:30am. We were expecting a 3 hour wait, but instead it only took an hour and 1/2! The cardio cath is an important part of preparing for the surgery. They strung a wire and tube through the groin artery to the heart, took pictures, measured pressures, and took some video of the heart pumping. Matt and I saw what they took afterward--pretty amazing stuff!

The main surgery will take place Monday morning. We will be checking in a 6am! Thank you all for the continued support and prayers. We do appreciate them more than you will ever know.

Eli's Open Heart Surgery Date

Posted in August 2009

We have finally been informed when Eli's surgery will be... It is going to be Monday, August 24th--bright and early in the morning. The procedure will take at least 5 or 6 hours. Again, this will be at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The procedure is known as the Glenn Shunt. They will stop the heart and put him on by-pass, but not do too much cutting to the heart during this surgery. Instead they will work with the veins and reroute the blood flow so that the blue blood from the top part of the body does not need to go to the heart, but straight to the pulmonary artery then to the lungs. His blood saturation should be in the high 80's after this is done. (Need help understanding? Check this out.)

and WE WENT CAMPING LAST NIGHT!

Just needed to get away and have some fun, you know what I mean? My sister and her husband came too.

Isaac slept really well during the night, and so did Eli.

The place we went to is called Heise Hot Springs (pronounced "high-c").

It is by the Snake River and near Kelly Canyon Ski Resort. Beautiful area!

Went swimming in the hot spring pool, did a little fishing (didn't catch anything), and played with fire!

So glad we did this.

Hot Spring pool fun!