Update on Elijah

I know many of you have been concerned about Elijah, so here's an update on his surgery.

Surgery Day for Elijah

Yesterday morning was fun trying to keep Elijah from eating and drinking. He found a random sippy cup from somewhere. Had to take that away quick. And when we were getting in the car he found a few-days-old raisin that Rob had to take out of his mouth.

He loved the hospital cause they had a lot of toys for him to play with. I didn't get treated that well when I was in the hospital! I told the nurse that and she said, "All the adults say that!" :) They let Elijah play in one of those red cars you can drive around. They let him take it to his room and they even did part of his physical in it. I was impressed with how accomodating they were. Obviously they understood kids and were trying to make him comfortable.

The surgery was an hour and a half behind schedule, which was a bummer. But Elijah was okay with it, I wasn't. I was starving by the time we could eat! :) They gave Elijah a sedating drug and then he was loopy. It was really funny to see him making googly eyes at everyone who walked in the room.

They told us the surgery would be half an hour long and it was finally over in an hour and 15 minutes. It was a long day of waiting. The surgeon said the surgery went well. They scoped the left side and found a hole there, too, which we thought they would, so they fixed both sides. We have a cool picture of the left-side-hole. Neat! And the two incisions were really small, so Elijah shouldn't have huge scars for the rest of his life, just little bitty ones.

Recovery and Going Home

In recovery he was zonked because they gave him extra narcotics to make him comfy. He had drugged eyes and an itchy nose and I told him I understood completely! We took him home and Miciah was ready to play with him, which annoyed Elijah in a sleepy type of way. We were home by 6 and he was asleep for the night at 8. I was asleep at 8, too. It's amazing how tiring waiting can be! So that's why I didn't get an e-mail out yesterday, sorry.

The only real mishap is that he was up at 11:30 until about midnight crying because of his "owies." He went back to sleep after very sincere and desperate praying on our part (the Lord hears desperate parents). And he slept until 7:15 the next morning. He was clingy to me and even when I wasn't holding him, he wanted me to be at his disposal, so I didn't get out of his sight until 10 when I laid back down with Teancom. I slept until 1 and Eliah went down at 10, too, and slept until 3. (We let Rob sleep in this morning until 8:30. He was waking up all night worried about Elijah, poor guy.) But Elijah woke up very happy and back to his old self. He's been playing with Miciah and doesn't seem to be in any pain. We're still giving him some Tylenol and Motrin off and on, and occasionally he'll find a movement that hurts him, but he's happy eating cookies and drinking juice and we're happy that he's doing so well.

Thank you for all your prayers and concerns and phone calls, etc. Thank you, Grandma D, for putting Elijah's name in the temple. It's been nice to feel like we have that kind of support behind us. And we're very grateful to C, Rob's mom, for being here for us. We know she wants to be at home cause she's been travelling so much, but I don't think we would have gotten through yesterday and this morning without her. We send our love to everyone and we're grateful to have the worst of this past us. Take care!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom