Elijah Update (June 18)

Dear Praying Friends

Judy is soooooo Excited. She can hardly contain herself. She went to the PICU unit this afternoon and was jumping up and down while she told “our” nurses that we are leaving tomorrow and she was packed up and will be ready to leave at 5AM. I love to see Judy so excited. Her spirits are up so high that she almost floats.

Today Judy hosted many people in Elijah’s room for the last time. Physical Therapy came by to work with Elijah and really gave him a workout. I think he slept most of the afternoon. Several of “our” PICU nurses came by and so did two phlebotomists to say good bye. Everyone seems excited to have Elijah heading home, but of course they will miss his smiles and bright eyes.

Joel is also excited to have his wife and son home with him again. However, Joel doesn’t think we will be leaving the hospital until 5PM. He is much more practical, but Judy will be the one pushing the doctors, nurses and other staff to keep on the ball and to get us out of Wichita. And boy, do many of these hospital people need pushing.

Last week the hospital was supposed to have some things delivered to Ness City in preparation of Elijah’s home coming. We still haven’t seen any supplies. The home care people stopped by today, they had some questions and said they would come back later today, but they never did. So we will see if they will be on the ball tomorrow.

June 19, 2007

Going Home Day!

I guess I am excited too I was up at 7AM ready to play with Elijah, get the staff moving and get Elijah ready to go home. Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait.

The doctor came in this morning saying everything is a go go for leaving and he was working with the home care people to make sure there is nothing to slow us down. Then our nurse came in and said that the home care people called and were having some issues. So I said to tell them that the home care people will have to pay for any hospital stays after today if they hold us up. Hopefully that will get them moving.

So now we sit and wait for everything to fall into place. The car is packed up, the room is almost cleaned up and the Fitzgeralds are chomping at the bit. We just can’t wait to go home.

Please continue to pray for Elijah’s health. We will be going home with oxygen and a feeding pump and, of course, Factor 9. Also pray that we figure out the best way to infuse the Factor 9 when it is time to do so. We haven’t decided if we want home health, the family doctor or our pediatrician to infuse him. There are also suggestions that we continue with speech and physical therapy so we will have to look into that and talk with a friend at home about these options. And please pray that any “rough” nights will not be so rough that we want to run back to the hospital just to calm mom and dad. Well, just pray that we don’t have any rough nights.

Another Ness county boy checked into this hospital yesterday. It is nice to see a familiar face but sad to see them for this reason. However he doesn’t need to have the scheduled surgery so maybe we will be going home together.

Thank you so much for praying and for continuing to pray.

Joel, Judy, and Elijah