Well, alot has happened in the 12 days since we've been home. Some good, some bad. I had hoped we would be better about keeping up with this blog, but then we got home, and back to real life. Actually, our normal real life would be welcome right now, but that's not happening yet. The day after we got home from Cincinnati, Eli started throwing up. He threw up for about 48 hours. We were pretty worried about him and weren't sure what was wrong. He was also having really bad diarrea, which we were actually kind of excited about since that meant stuff was moving through! Then Cooper threw up a couple of times, and I got pretty sick for a day too, so we determined that Eli must have had a bad stomach bug. In the midst of all the throw up, we had swim lessons (thankfully no one messed up the pool). That was the fun part of last week. Well, I guess I can't say it was fun for everybody. Eli screamed every time we tried to get him in the water, so he got to sit and watch. Silas did great, and even got brave enough to go off the diving board by the third day- which is a HUGE deal for him! Before these lessons he always had to be clinging on to someone's neck, even if we were right next to the steps. Cooper actually did really well too, and was swimming under the water for a couple of feet from instructor to instructor by the end of the week. I've included some pictures of their swimming adventures. After everybody got better, we had a couple of good days and had a really nice Father's Day. Then Eli started throwing up again and screaming in pain on Monday. Since this was the third time he had done this since surgery, I started to worry that he might have an obstruction. He had pooped a couple of times in the last few days, but not much since all his diarrea the week before. So, I took him to Vanderbilt to get an x-ray. The surgeon there thought that he did have an obstruction in his small bowel, and they were going to admit him and put a tube down his nose to try to clean him out from above. He hoped that this would get pressure off of the obstruction, and it would work itself out in time, but if that didn't work then Eli would have to have surgery. This was extremely disappointing news as you can imagine! While we were waiting for a room in the hospital, we had them email the x-ray to Eli's surgeon in Cincinnati. After he saw it, he called and said he didn't think it looked like an obstruction, but thought Eli's colon was definitely dialated more than it should be. So, we were sent home with instructions to not feed him anything until we had come back for an x-ray on Tuesday. We were sure thankful to be going home with him instead of staying at the hospital, but we were concerned as to what was going on with him. We took him Tuesday for an x-ray and while it looked a little better, it still showed that his colon was very dialated. We could feed him now (thank you!) but Dr. Levitt told us that we need to irrigate him 3x daily for the next week, then 2x daily for a week, then 1x daily and see how he did. Wait a minute... I thought Eli just had surgery with the hope of irrigating less than before (or not at all) and now we have to do it 3 times a day??!! Does this make sense to anyone? I am at least thankful that he is pooping some here and there, and sometimes can actually push it out on his own when asked to. (It's a fun little bathtime game) :) That means that something in there is working, even if it's just a little bit. And, I am thankful that he has been feeling great since Tuesday. He hasn't acted this close to the old Eli since we've been home for sure. Those are definitely some positive things that I need to be focusing on! At this point you are probably wondering what the title of this blog means. Well, Cincinnati called yesterday and said that based on Eli's x-rays this week, they would like to see him tomorrow. Although it's not my favorite thing to be doing this weekend, we do feel better about them seeing him up there since they know him a little better than Vanderbilt does. I am going with Eli early in the morning to hopefully make it for a 2 o'clock appointment. Hopefully they will figure out what's going on with that little short colon of his, and we'll be on our way home before anyone even misses us. They may, however, want us to stick around for a few days to keep a close eye on him. I hope not I hope not I hope not! Please pray for our safety, for the doctors that will be checking him, and for Eli to just start working!! I'll keep you posted...
We did it! We finally got out of Cincinnati Saturday morning and didn't stop until we got home. As soon as we turned onto our street, Eli started yelling "I see my home! I see my home!". I don't think we've ever been more excited to see our house before (except maybe when we finally got to move in!). Within a few minutes Silas and Cooper were there to greet us and we were all together again. Thank the good Lord for that! What a long three weeks that was. Eli was so happy all the way home in the car; he couldn't stop smiling for 4 hours. I (Shawna) was heavily drugged on some Vicodin, which made my back pain go away, but made me nauseous so I tried not to open my eyes or move much. So I unfortunately did not share in Eli's joy as much as I would have liked! I am doing much better today. I will probably go to the doctor this week to see if they can figure out what is going on with my back since this has happened alot in the last few months, although this was the worst by far.
