{Almost} Out of the Danger Zone

Although we aren't exactly sure when Eli had his stroke, it has officially been just over 72 hours since it was detected and that's a big deal.  He should now be past the time that he had the highest chance of having another stroke, bleeding on his brain or seizing.  The team has monitored him very closely since Monday afternoon and everyone seems to be cautiously optimistic that our little fighter will be able to pull through this.  There's still a long way to go but Eli has proven many people wrong many different times so we won't put anything past him!

Neurologically, Eli is making progress every day.  He has been much more alert since yesterday and he even started moving his fingers and toes on the left side a bit.  There aren't any current plans to have another MRI done so we are relying on the bedside exam to track his progress and it is definitely headed in the right direction.  On Tuesday afternoon Logan and I had a care conference with all of Eli's teams (Bone Marrow, PICU, Renal and Neuro) to make sure everyone is on the same page and to update us on his status.  If I'm being honest, I was quite nervous to sit down with everyone.  It had been an emotional previous 24 hours and I had a feeling we would be discussing things that would be tough for a parent to hear.  Surprisingly, I felt quite calm the entire time and Logan and I came out feeling optimistic.  

On an individual level, everything Eli is dealing with is perfectly possible to recover from but when you put SCID, respiratory failure, renal failure and a stroke all together it makes things much more difficult but definitely still possible.  As far as his bone marrow status, Eli couldn't be doing better.  They are very pleased with his progress in that regard.  The renal team is still hopeful that his kidneys will wake up but it's difficult to pinpoint a time when that might happen.  They like to give their patients' kidneys 3 months to get better before it's consider a more chronic issue.  Eli's kidneys stopped working about a month ago now so there's definitely still time.  As for neuro, this is the one I was most nervous to discuss.  We were told that if Eli made it through the next 72 hours then he would have a much better chance of making it but we hadn't yet discussed what his long-term prognosis might be.  The neuro docs basically told us that the tissue on the entire right side of Eli's brain is irrecoverable but if he was going to have a stroke, he had it at the perfect time due to his age and how much his brain is still growing and changing.  Because the right side of his brain will no longer function on its own, the left side will now (hopefully) begin to take over.  They said they have seen babies Eli's age that had the same type of stroke recover almost completely and some that only recovered a little bit.  Only time will tell how much Eli will recover but it was so good to hear that there's definitely hope!  Our little buddy has fought so hard to stay here and we couldn't be more proud of him!  We truly have an amazing spirit on our hands.

I received some of the pictures from KSL today that they took during the photo shoot of Eli for the telethon and for some reason fell in love with this one:

He looks like such a peaceful, happy, snoozing baby.  I can't wait for moments like this again when I can pick him up and cuddle him as he sleeps!  I'm sure I'll want to hold him so often when he's better that he'll want nothing to do with me after a short time.  To all the moms out there: Kiss and hug your babies extra tight tonight for me because there's nothing I miss more in the whole world than cuddling my little buddy!

Keep it up, little man!  Fight on, Eli!