For those of you that have been following our journey, you know that Eli is quite the fighter! This little man has overcome more than most adults I know, and has done it with such courage, strength and laughter (our favorite part).

For the last few weeks, his counts have been drastically low. With these low numbers he has had to temporarily stop all chemo that he is currently taking.  He has had to have a platelet  and blood transfusion. Again, he has taken all of this with big strides! 

A few weeks ago we learned that his port had a “fracture” at the catheter site. This was learned when our friends in dickinson infusion were not only unable to access him, but he ended up infiltrated. From there we went to see our friends in Bismarck where they completed a dye study to confirm that it was indeed fractured. This meant that in order to finish treatment and the following months, he would need a new port placed with the broken one removed. 

Last Thursday he finally made counts that were sufficient enough for the restart of chemo as well as to have his port surgery.

Today, our little fighter went into the OR and not only got his port removed but replaced. We could not do this chaotic journey with our AMAZING child life friends! He saw his friend Melissa and his little face just lit up. 

Now the real “chaos” starts…trying to keep our three year old from removing his incision glue! For reference…he has part of it removed before we even left the hospital. 

I don’t often, in fact hard ever show pictures of his owies. However, I will share a couple from today’s journey. I share them for 3 reasons. 

1. Share of Gods protection, goodness and the power of prayer. Our prayer was that there were no complications, and that he was able to keep his port on the right side of his chest, which the surgeon was able to do.

2. To show that this little man is a fighter! As you can see, he has multiple incisions, all of which are not simple, or not painful…and yet, in Eli fashion, he is all SMILES!

3. To share why we are SO protective of our son, our fighter. Being immunocompromised means that he is at risk of infections, and with wounds like this, we would never want to risk infection and cause more harm to our son…especially when we can do everything in our power to protect it.

Let this little guy remind you that keeping sick kiddos home, adults being responsible and staying home and overall common sense goes a long way. From the outside, with a shirt on, he looks like a normal kid. Shirt off, he is fighting the very best that his compromised immune system can fight! 

Thank you to every person who has taken the time to continuously pray over this journey, and especially for today’s surgery!