Elijah Update (April 10)

Dear Elijah Warriors,

Let me start out with a funny thing. One of the managers at the Ronald McDonald House asked Joel if I was his mother-in-law! OK, I know that I have aged a lot these last two months, but I don't think I have aged enough to be his mother-in-law. (sorry mom!) It made him so happy to have someone think he was SO young. HA!

Elijah is doing well. He is a very happy little guy. Last night we were both on different sides of his bed, and as we each spoke he would move his head to look at who was speaking. We started having fun with him and talking just to watch him turn his head to look at us. We even got a few smiles out of him.

The doctors and nurses here are so positive about his outcome. Following his SVC syndrome issue....when he clotted throughout his body....he had quite a few problems circulating his blood. Our doctor was excited yesterday when he checked his head and found that color comes back quickly when you press on his skin. We praise the Lord that his blood is moving so well. His chest cavity is still draining fluid so there is still a blockage somewhere in his thoracic system. Chest tubes are not designed to stay in someone for a long time, and the time has come to move to the next stage. God has chosen to answer our prayers to stop the drainage with a "no". So, unless He decides to clear this up before Wednesday evening, we will face a surgery on Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m. (Kansas time). The doctor wants to put in a shunt that will drain his fluid down into his abdomen. This will hopefully only need to be used for a few months until the thoracic duct that is blocked opens back up.

Please pray with us: Pray that God will open up this duct before Wednesday evening. If he chooses to not do that.....be praying for the surgery on Thursday. Pray that Elijah will handle it well, that he will clot as he is supposed to. They will be using small doses of Factor 9 as needed. We were just informed today that the results of Elijah's blood test at Mayo Clinic shows that he DOES have the chromosome marker for Hemophilia B, so we will deal with that as we go along. We praise the Lord that he has clotted well here in Wichita, that his bruises are healing up quickly and that he is doing so well even without the Factor 9 infusions. Continue to pray with us for this little boy.

A song that God has given to me is: "Have faith in God, He's on His Throne, Have Faith in God, He watches over His own. He cannot fail, He must prevail. Have faith in God, have faith in God."

So much has happened over the past few months. Elijah was born, and that was one of the best days of our lives. We are so grateful for him. We never would have planned these last 2 months and been excited about it, but God is giving us the strength for each day. We know it is only through your prayers that we are being held up. We hope that you all can meet this boy one day.

Praying for the Gentle Whisper,

Judy (Saca), Joel, and Elijah

P.S.
When we came back to Elijah's ICU room tonight after supper the nurse pulled us aside and said, "We had a traumatic event happen while you were gone." Of course this isn't the best way to greet parents, we wanted to rush to our son's side and see what had happened. Our nurse continued to say that his right chest tube came out while we were gone, the surgeon had been notified and she had told the staff to monitor it over night and she would look into it in the morning, but if something happened she would be at the hospital in 10 minutes or less. We were relieved that Elijah was OK. This event didn't really shock us because just before we left to get supper the chest tube had developed a leak and really wasn't working properly. The surgeon did come to check on it and Elijah. She was satisfied all was OK, she doesn't want to replace it because she plans on removing the tubes on Thursday. So the "traumatic" event wasn't so traumatic after all. Elijah is very happy not to have a tube sticking out of his right chest and has been quite content tonight.