Elijah Update (Easter Sunday)

Dear Friends,

Thank you SO much! Thank you for fasting and praying with us for Elijah. Thank you for standing with us through this battle. We pray that you will all be with us for the victory as well!!!

Right now, Joel is holding Elijah and I am sitting on the floor writing this letter. PICU is very crowded today and they had to take our extra chair away for another family. We are amazed at the changes this department goes through in a matter of hours. Elijah came in as the most critical baby on the unit and he required the attention of several nurses and doctors. Today he requires the attention of one nurse and our doctor came by and said "I will be back to talk with you, there are more critical kids here today." We are so grateful to be out of the critical stage and into the "wait" stage. We would love to be out of the "wait" stage and move on from there.

What is going on? I will let Joel write the medical part. :)

I didn't realize until a moment ago that we haven't written since April 1. I'm sorry for the long delay as I know so many of you wait anxiously to read about Elijah. As Judy wrote we are waiting. Every day we wait for the doctor to come in to talk with us to give us news about our son's condition. Sometimes we wait until noon before we receive a report. And the last 8 days the report has been the same, "We just have to wait and see". Friday our doctor told us Elijah is "Rock Solid." Meaning he is stable and nothing is changing for the good or bad. We are very thankful that God is protecting our boy.

Elijah still has the chest tubes in place, and they are still removing fluid from his pleural cavity (the area around his lungs). We are continually amazed at the amount of fluid Elijah's body produces and dumps into his chest. This fluid is supposed to be circulating through his body. Because it isn't circulating he is losing white blood cells, immunity, other blood components and important nutrients. The doctors can replace the nutrients and some of the blood components but not the white blood cells nor the immunity. We pray every day that God will protect our boy and keep contagious diseases away from Elijah. God has been faithful.

The doctors are giving Elijah just a few more days to stop the flow of fluid from his chest which hasn't slowed since day one. This means the blockage to his lymphatic system must be removed and only God and Elijah can do that. We pray that God will make this happen before the end of Easter Day.

They say he can't have the chest tubes forever (I agree), and the medicine doesn't seem to have helped. The next step is surgery which doesn't excite us at all. Three options of surgery seem to be open to us: 1) Tie off the main lymphatic duct, 2) Shunt the chest cavity to the abdominal cavity and 3) my least favorite -- Fuse the outer lung wall to the lining around the lungs - this would leave no room for the fluid to accumulate. I don't really understand how this will help, but Dr. V. says it does work.

What did you learn while your fasted and prayed? Did God teach you anything? God gave us a great peace. We enjoyed sacrificing our food in order to pray over Elijah. We were reminded of Gods amazing sacrifice and Jesus' pain in order for us to be given life. We prayed a lot for our little guy and are grateful to the Lord for His protection of Elijah. We prayed for Elijah's healing. We do not understand why God is taking so long or what His plans are for Elijah. However, we are so grateful for our relationship with an Almighty God who cares about each one of us. What a peace we have.

Easter Sunday: We were able to attend a wonderful service here in Wichita. We loved the worship and were both touched by the message.

Joel's sister Heather came from Lawrence, Kansas and spent some time reading with Elijah. He LOVES it when we read. He gets everything from the Bible, Bible Stories for little eyes, Dr. Seuss, the Limbaugh Letter and now Joel is working through the story of Seabiscuit with him.

Joel, Judy and Elijah