Eli's Recovery

Thank you all for you prayers and kind emails about Eli. I'll try to sum up the situation briefly. He came out of surgery last night around 1 am and is in ICU until at least Thursday, but he is doing well under the circumstances. The affected area of the small intestine had begun to turn black and was leaking blood into the abdomen. The surgeon had to remove one foot of the intestine and repair it. He said that if they had waited until morning, it might have been too late. Eli had a high pulse rate and high blood pressure today because he had lost so much blood through the intestine prior to the surgery. Because the red blood cell count was low, his circulatory system was having to work extra hard to get oxygen to the body. After a blood transfusion this afternoon, his heart rate and blood pressure were back down. They sat him up in a chair this afternoon for about 15 minutes to get him into a new position for awhile. He's very groggy, thanks to the pain medicine, but he is giving short responses to some questions. My parents went down this morning to help with the girls, and numerous friends and neighbors have come through for them. Marci called Eli's birth family, and they are going down to see him this weekend. It's amazing to think how so many people had to make the right decisions about Eli's care for him to be alive right now. God's handprints are just all over it. Even the surgeon said that when Eli's doctor called him last night about Eli, he just "coincidentally" was reading up on the very condition Eli had, even though he knew nothing of Eli or the possibility of doing the surgery that very night. You'll never convince me that this was a coincidence!!! Thanks for your prayers, and please keep praying for him as he recovers.