Elijah Rockwell's Story....

This caught my eye on Ava's memorial site this evening (well, this morning at 1:30 actually.....). I had no idea about the risk between reptiles and children ~ I will be reading more into this now.

To the Rockwells ~ I wish you all of the best for your future with your special little boy. xxx

On November 24, 2004 I delivered my son- Elijah Rockwell Johnson. As his nurses said when he came out HE WAS PERFECT! He stayed awake for the first three hours he came out and just looked at everyone in amazement. He had a set of lungs that you wouldn't believe..the second night of his short life he screamed his head off..ate every half hour and didn't sleep a wink!!! My husband and I couldn't have been happier! My daughter, Desierae, was also very excited to be a big sister. We left the hospital on the evening of November 27th, 2004 and were so happy to be taking our baby boy home FINALLY after the nine month wait!!!!!!!

On November 28th Elijah slept a lot, I thought he had worn himself out staying up every night but my husband had a bad feeling. Elijah stopped nursing completely that evening around 11:00 pm. We thought that maybe the tylonel that we were giving him for his circumcision was making him drowsy so we stopped giving it to him and immediately his fever went up. We called the pediatrician around 1:00 a.m. and took him to Upper Chesapeake's emergency room.

By the time we arrived- Elijah's organs had started failing, he had stopped breathing and he was having seizures. We were informed that he would have to be flown to Johns Hopkins and asked to kiss him in case he did not make it through the helicopter ride .. we could not ride with him because there was no room so my husband and I drove in rush hr traffic in a daze..when we arrived at Hopkins he was hooked up to a breathing machine and our heads were spinning..each second seemed liked hrs and all we could do now was wait!!!!

We later found out that Elijah had a stroke before he arrived at Hopkins that killed most of the right side of his brain. We waited to find out what was wrong with our baby and had no clue what to expect!!!!! We soon found out that Elijah had meningitis caused by salmonella which came from our daughter's lizard. At the time when the Drs asked us if we had a reptile in our home we had no clue that there was any danger involved with owning a reptile. We met with Hopkins Infectious Disease team and were informed no child under five should EVER be around reptiles of any kind but this was the first we had ever heard of this! We were informed that a large percentage of reptiles including snakes, lizards, frogs..etc carry the salmonella bacteria. This bacteria is very dangerous and can live on surfaces such as light switches, carpets, couches, telephones, clothing etc for up to 90 days. You never actually have to come in contact with the reptile itself to contract the bacteria.

We were told that Elijah may not make it through the next 48 hrs. He was put on antibiotics along with 3 blood pressure medicines and the drs continued to run tests. The happiest time of our lives had turned into a living nightmare.

After 5 long days in Hopkins PICU it seemed Elijah was doing better, he had opened his eyes and started crying over the breathing machine. Sadly though, the salmonella had built up in his spine and Elijah now had 187,000 white blood cells in his spinal fluid alone. A normal baby has around 5 white blood cells in his spinal fluid !!!! His drs had never heard of a count this high!!!
When the drs took a spinal tap the spinal fluid was so thick and pink they could barely pull it through the syringe!!! Elijah was on the way to get a CT scan and his heart rate dropped to under 30 bpm right in front of our eyes ... they started giving him chest compressions. We almost lost him again...but thankfully they brought him back to being stable!!

An EEG was done and this time there was no brain activity at all other then seizures, we were told that 80% of Elijah's brain had turned into scar tissue and that it would never rejovinate!!! We had a meeting where my husband and I were asked if we wanted to let him go but the thought never crossed our minds. I prayed and prayed for the strength to make it through for my son, I did not pray for Elijah to live, only for him not to suffer.

Elijah is a strong boy and within three weeks he was off the breathing tube and no longer had to take the blood pressure medicines. He was slowly weined off of the oxygen and was able to open his eyes shortly after. We would soon learn that Elijah was now blind and could not cry or suck. He had developed hydrocephelus and an abscess had formed from the bacteria. He had two brain surgeries the first week in January and developed a staph infection from the catheter that was put into his brain to drain some of the fluid. He would later have two more brain surgeries all performed by Dr Ben Carson.

Elijah now has a permanent shunt in his head . We were able to come home on March 14, 2005 after 3 1/2 long months in the hospital. Elijah's outlook was and is still not very good but we are not discouraged by this. He will never see again. He had to go back to the hospital in April of 2005 for a permanent feeding tube that was put into his stomach. Elijah has therapists that come to the house 4 days a week along ... we constantly have to go to the Dr and to Johns Hopkins to make sure that Elijah is ok. We have been flown back to Hopkins and taken a few ambulance rides but everything for the most part is stable at this point.

People ask how my husband and I do all that we do but I just tell them that we are no stronger then anyone else! We do this all out of the love for our baby boy! We will do everything that we can to make Elijah's life the highest quality possible! Although Elijah does not laugh or cry we know that he loves us..we can watch his breathing pattern change when we come into the room and that is enough to keep us going. Elijah now has a stander and a wheel chair that help us get him around in the house.. we have had so much support from family and friends that we could not ask for more! Our blessings are countless and for all that has happened we still have an incredible life and are so grateful!

Our faith in God and Elijah's strength is what has kept us going through all of the hard times... It is not only our job to be there for Elijah as loving parents but a privilege that we have him in our lives. He is the best thing that has ever happened to us and he has made us appreciate every moment that we have to share with our loved ones. We are so blessed to have the support of friends and family and we thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for thoughts and prayers.

Thanks for listening and please pass this story to everyone and anyone that will listen .. WBAL did a story on Elijah and Salmonella from reptiles ..the link is below..if you click on the lizard you should still be able to view our story ..make sure your volume is up..it is very interesting how many petstores were violated for not having signs that showed the dangers of reptiles carrying salmonella and the deadly effects that they could have!!!

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/4506427/detail.html#