Eli Charlie Simpson

Eli Charlie Simpson was born on the 28th September 2007 at Bairnsdale hospital. His mum (Jodie) and dad (Peter) are totally besotted with him, and the rest of the extended family plus friends also think he's pretty special.

Eli 'was a bit crook' (to use his mum's phrase) in January 2008 (had blood in his poo) and was taken to hospital for an ultrasound and x-ray on the 23rd January. These identified that he has an enlarged spleen. He then had a blood test and later that day the Doctor called Jodes to tell her that he thought Eli had leukaemia. Jodes called Peter (who was up at the block with the cows) and told him the news - both were obviously devastated.

They were asked to take Eli to Melbourne that night to the Monash Medical Centre. So off they went to Melbourne and had a terrible night as they checked in to the hospital around 10.30pm and Eli had different tests done and they were hanging around the hospital for most of the night. This was the beginning of a rough few days at the MMC where Eli had blood taken every day so that the Doctors could understand more about his illness. Eli developed a bit of a high temperature on the friday (25/1/08) so was given antibiotics to help him fight an infection ('cos his white cell count is so high and his body is flat out dealing with the other illness). Eli also had a blood marrow test which was pretty rough on all the family - lucky for dad and mum the staff at the MMC were great.

By Tuesday 29th January we were allowed to go home. The probable diagnosis (90% surety) was then leukaemia but the dr's wanted to do a few more tests to be 100% sure, so we were asked to come back the next week. In the meantime Eli was still having tummy problems so on 1 February off we went to Dr Goss in Sale. There they found that that Eli has colitis (belly bugs are out of kilter), so Eli was given some medicine for that and is feeling a bit better.

Jodes and Pete have been talking about Eli and his illness at length. Its a huge thing to have a bone marrow transplant but it may be that its his only chance of survival. There's also the possibility that he'll need blood transfusions and maybe chemotherapy as well as the weekly blood tests to monitor his illness.