I have been so bad about updating this blog. I have a new addiction, online poker. And I enjoy playing at night...so I don't get on here as much. No, I don't play for any money..waaayyy too cheap for that..HA!

The past few weeks have been tough, but we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. After Eli's fever and trip to the ER..we all got the tummy bug. By Sunday we were all better..then Eli threw up every night for 8 days. Just threw up once a night, nothing else. He also wasn't eating anything which had me really worried. Finally, last Sunday he also got diarreah. When I went to the clinic on Monday to have them look at him again she was like, "Phew, he had diarrea...now we know it is viral and it will go away"..and by today he is fine. It is amazing how a little virus can get a mother so worried. With all of the meds he takes, I kept thinking what if his digestive system is messed up somehow??? Dr. White has Eli taking Prevacid daily so I wasn't so worried about ulcers...but it didn't matter!

But he went back to school today and was energetic for most of the day. His counts have been interesting to say the least. On the Monday after our ER visit his anc was 800...then when I first took him in with the tummy bug(three days later) his anc was over 9000 and his white blood cell count was "High"....this is a number that is ALWAYS "Low" and many times "Critical"...so I sorta freaked over that thinking relapse??? But the drs said it was actually a great sign because his body was doing what it needed to do to fight the virus that he obviously had. Since then, his counts have come down but only to 2600.

Needless to say, we have been to the clinic lots in the past few weeks and made some calls to the onc on call and again I have to say how blessed we are to have such a terrific and loving caregiving staff.

The older boys are doing well...both are playing soccer and swimming. Eli is playing soccer too...so lots of sports for us.

Thanks for checking in, and thanks for your prayers.

Maria

I am thankful for the staff at MUSC.

Eli's Team 2009...missing Krissie, Diane, and Toni


Hey. I know I haven't updated in a while, and things here have been crazy. I am going to let Jacob tell you about our past couple of weeks.

Hi!!! I know I've have never written to you guys before, and apologize if it's not good. It is true, we have our last couple of weeks really crazy. My mom walked the the half-marathon and when my friend, Matthew, and I opened the window, we saw the streets littered with runners. I couldn't believe how many runners there was. Oh, and you might want to know Eli was with my dad and Sam, and Eli just puked all over my dad. I just learned that Eli meant to to puke. He gagged and just vomited. Back to the story. Good-night. In the next published posts, I'll write more.

That was Jacob writing some...he had to got to bed so I will finish. The weekend after the marathon John went on a much deserved boys weekend to play golf. I don't think he has done this since Eli was dx. So, as Murphy would have it, Eli ran a fever on Friday night. I had to call Sallie at 2am for her to come over and sleep while we went to the ER. They sent us home at 7am after looking at his bloodwork (which had come up) and given him the first round of IV antibiotics. We kept his port accessed and I gave him the remainder of his antibiotics at home over the weekend.

Last week found us with the stomach bug. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say that we were 5 for 5 and none of us had a great weekend. I think E might have picked it up at clinic on Monday. They have been seeing alot of this bug and he was the first one to loose his cookies on Tuesday night. So that brought us back to the clinic on Wednesday to spend the day getting fluids. We were able to come home, thank God, and Eli was recovering. What Jacob was writing about was tonight. We finally are venturing out of the house and Eli went to the boy scouts with Sam and John. Well, because of his throwing up so much last week he has been gagging at the least little thing lately. And he gagged, and he lost his cookies!!

We go back to the clinic on Thursday to start his steroid pulse and get chemo. We have been downtown way too much this week!!

Thanks for checking in.

Maria

Although this sounds as though we had a rough couple of weeks (and we have) we are very blessed and thankful that throughout all of this we have been able to stay home...no hospital stays...Eli seems to be battling these illnesses with some strenghth, although he is working with a compromised immune system...Thank God!!