Eloise’s MRI this week

Eloise has been doing (in her world) really well.  We intentionally include the caveat as when people ask us ‘How is Eloise?’ – it’s often hard to know what to say.  Apologies if you’ve asked us this and we’ve stumbled with our words and struggled with a response. All things considered, Eloise has been doing brilliantly since the turn of the year (whoop! go girl). However,  if you benchmarked how Eloise is doing (developmentally/physically) against a typical 4.5 year-old (without knowing her background) then you might have quite a few concerns. 

But, most importantly, in Eloise’s world she’s doing fab and is enjoying life – living up to her name; a warrior, fighting for life in abundance!

This week Eloise has two trips to St George’s Hospital.  One on Thursday to meet an infectious disease consultant (due to her neurological instability when she gets an infection), and then one on Friday for her next routine MRI, under general anaesthetic.

We’d value prayers for her MRI.  Prayers that it goes ahead (i.e. she doesn’t develop a cough or anything this week), that Eloise is fine being nil by mouth and with the general anaesthetic (e.g. no seizures the following day) and that her shunt is adjusted ok after the MRI.  Most importantly we’d value prayers that Eloise’s scan is all clear and shows she is still in remission.  We’d also value prayers that the calcification lesion in the brainstem shows no sign of change (or ideally that it has disappeared!) and that the hydrocephalus is well managed.  In short please pray the whole thing goes smoothly and the scan is ALL CLEAR.

We are unlikely to get the results for over a week (we actually expect to get them whilst on holiday) and will update the blog when we do.

How do we feel?

Pre-MRI result weeks always induce slight low-level anxiety.  We remain hopeful but are aware that sometimes the unexpected can happen.  But overall we know that God continues to be with Eloise through this journey and are hopeful that the scan will show good news.

Unfortunately, the last few weeks have been pretty stressful generally for a range of other (non-health) reasons.  Similarly to Eloise’s health, despite these challenges we remain hopeful and remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness. We have countless stories of God’s miracles and of Him ‘showing up’ (see here and here for just a few examples) and remind ourselves of these.  We also pray that perhaps, at some point, life will be a little less unpredictable – but who knows.

At the same time, life also continues to be punctuated with amusing moments – mainly engineered or started by Eloise, who makes us laugh with her sense of humour.  Anna also thinks that Eloise is incredibly funny – which, in turn, further encourages Eloise!

For those that pray:

• Give thanks for all the miracles it’s taken to get Eloise to this point
• Please pray the MRI goes smoothly on Friday and that the results show NED!
• Please continue to pray for Eloise generally (see previous blog posts for specific requests for her general health/development).