A long road ahead

On Friday the 30th I received a phone from St. Vincents letting me know that Elijah was not doing so well. They had consulted with some doctors at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee and though that he could get better care down there. The hospital up here just did not have what Elijah needed to be treated. They said they were going to air lift him, but it was too foggy so they sent a transport unit up along with a team consisting of an ICU doctor, and ICU nurse and a respiratory therapist. At 3:20 pm I received a phone call from the ICU doctor from the Milwaukee transport unit and he informed me that they were having a hard time stabilizing Elijah for transport. His oxygen stats kept dropping into the 70's. He said he wanted to let me know the severity of his condition and if they needed to on they way down to Milwaukee, if he worsened they would perform CPR on him and even had to tell me that there may be a possibility that he may not make it. I did not hear from them for a while so I called Milwaukee at 6pm to see if they had made it down there and they had. I was told that they just arrived and were in the elevator on there way up to the ICU unit with a team standing by. They advised me to call back in an hour to give the staff a chance to do what they needed to do.

At 8 pm they said that they had to perform a surgery on Elijah to hook him up to a bypass machine for his heart and lungs called an ECMO machine. They said his ride down was very hard and he became critical with his oxygen stats dropping into the 50's and they also had to pump him full of blood pressure medication. They did get him stable and having been taking fabulous care of him.

As of 30 minutes ago, the update from Children's Hospital was that they slowly weaned Elijah off of the ECMO machine and he is holding his own. His heart rate is a little low, but they are going to watch that, his blood pressure is good as well as his oxygen stats. He is a tough little boy, but has a long road ahead of him.

Thank you to all for your continued support through this very difficult time. Steve and I are very, very lucky to have great friends and family!