The last days at Sheba Hospital were very scary for Eslam and especially his mother. Two days ago in the evening his heart stopped for about seven minutes. He was reintubated to stabilise him and remained on ventilator until the doctors were sure he would remain stable.
Today was the day doctors decided he’s ready to be extubated and just get external oxygen support. His mother was very happy about looking at Eslam with his big brown eyes without a tube in his mouth. We pray for Eslam so that his liver will slowly get better and that his delicate state of stability will continue.
Eslam is still fighting bravely. Sadly his liver enzymes are continuing to get worse since a few days, which means he is still very yellow. The doctors at Sheba Hospital hope that his liver enzymes will get better in the next days so that they can take off his oxygen support because his breathing is getting better. But in order for that to be possible, the number of liver enzymes must get better first.
Our sweet Eslam was extubated today! This is such a wonderful and powerful message, having his bad condition in the last few weeks in mind. His mum seems to be really proud of her little boy and is relieved, since this means that Eslam is a step further away from a tracheostomy. May the Lord be with our little boy and give him the strength to keep on improving. Please join our prayers!
Our cute Eslam is still not doing well and intubated in the ICU of Sheba hospital. His skin is really yellow and he doesn’t look healthy at all. His doctor said that if he won’t improve within the next week he will maybe even get a tracheostomy, but his mother is very confident. She’s staying by her son’s side and is singing sweet lullabies really beautifully for him; they seemed to calm Eslam down, and comfort his mother as well. She is full of hope and told me that she feels like Eslam is improving. May her words reach God’s ears! Please pray for little Eslam, that he will improve and not need a tracheostomy, since it is an invasive and undesirable intervention.
Our sweet Eslam is still not doing well and is intubated in the ICU of Sheba Hospital. His skin is really yellow and he doesn’t look healthy at all. If he doesn’t improve in the next days, he may even get a tracheostomy, but his mother is very confident. She said that he is already doing better and was singing for him really beautifully. It seemed to calm him down. Please pray for little Eslam, that he will improve and not need a tracheostomy, since it is an invasive intervention!
Eslam is not doing better after his surgery to lower his diaphragm. His belly is swollen, so the doctors are trying to reduce the swelling. Eslam is not ready yet for extubation and the doctor told me today that he is not in a good shape right now. When I saw him today, he was sleeping and his mother turned on some ‘sleeping music’ for him. It is sad to see him in this condition, with a yellow skin color. Please keep praying for Eslam. There is still hope for him, so we pray that God will heal him according to His will.
Eslam went into surgery at Sheba Hospital this morning to fix his paralyzed diaphragm. Hopefully this will help him with his breathing problems and he will be able to breath on his own without a ventilator. Please pray for the surgery to go well and for Eslam’s good recovery.
Later in the day:
Eslam’s surgery went well and he’s doing well. They were able to lower his diaphragm on the right side. Hopefully the doctors can extubate him in the coming days.
The doctors at Sheba Hospital decided today for Eslam that they need to do another surgery for him tomorrow. The surgery is for the diaphragm, because right now it’s not working strongly enough. This is causing Eslam’s inability to breathe in and out well enough to get enough oxygen for his body.
Eslam also has problems with his liver, which is causing the yellow color on his skin. Today he had an ultrasound. When the results are in, the doctors can decide what needs to happen for his liver as well.
Eslam’s mother takes great care of her son. She is so proud of him. This morning I caught her singing her son to sleep.
This morning when I visited Eslam and his mother at Sheba Hospital, he looked so much better than when I saw him the last time. He was extubated over the weekend and today I saw him for the first time awake. With his big dark eyes he was watching us being joyful about his great steps forward.
When he got tired, his mother sang an Arabic lullaby with her beautiful voice. It was amazing to see Eslam’s mother so happy and grateful again. Still he is very weak and has problems breathing. His diaphragm muscle might be paralyzed which could be the reason for his breathing problems. Also his liver enzymes are not so good which is why his skin is still so yellow.
He is recovering well from his sepsis, but it’s still not fully gone. We continue to pray for him as he’s still on his way to recovery. Hopefully he will be healthy soon and able to be in his mother’s arms again.
When I walked into Eslam’s room, a nurse was moving around quickly, arranging wires and oxygen in ways I didn’t understand. His mother, a very young woman, stood by anxiously, asking occasional questions.
Eslam looks pretty rough right now, with yellowish skin and bruises and visible spidering veins across his stomach. But he holds tenaciously on to life, and the doctors are fighting alongside him. Although he is still in danger, and still very unwell, the Sheba Hospital doctors are optimistic–they think he’s on the path to healing, long and dangerous though it is. Even now he is recovering–he had a case of sepsis over the weekend he has since healed from.
Slowly but steadily, he approaches restoration. Please keep praying for this little boy, that he will heal and recover and enter into fullness of life.
Today I went to the Sheba Hospital ICU to visit Eslam. When I saw him I saw that his skin had a few red spots. His doctor told me that he suffered from a septic shock, a severe blood infection, over the weekend but was treated with antibiotics and is doing better now. His mother is always so lovely when we visit him and I am really glad that her son is doing a little bit better now after so many setbacks.
Please continue praying for Eslam and his lovely mom.
Just a day after his big and dangerous surgery at Sheba Hospital, little Eslam is, to the surprise of everyone, doing pretty well. He is stable and off dialysis and looks better than he did before they took him into surgery.
We waited all afternoon until late evening for an emergency surgery of another child along with that child’s father. Eslam’s mother stayed with us the whole time, cheered us up, brought us food and encouraged that child’s dad despite all language barriers. She is a great woman to have around.
We thank God for Eslam’s great recovery so far and pray it will continue this way!
This early morning Eslam went into his high risk heart surgery to repair his aortic valve. It was a really risky surgery and even doctors feared that he might not make it. Before the surgery he was in a really bad condition and so this surgery was his only chance. While doctors and surgeons operated on him and did everything to save this little boy, his mother and I were waiting outside. His mother really amazed me today. She stayed calm the whole day and even laughed while spending time with other mothers, despite her worries and the dangerous situation her little son was in. We were both really worried while we were sitting in the waiting area waiting and hoping for the best. But still we had a good time together, ate together breakfast and lunch. Praise God that the surgery went so well. It still amazes me how his condition took a complete turn. Just before the surgery he was still in this terrible situation with a low chance of survival. Now after the surgery he is in a completely new situation. The head doctor of the cardiology department told me that he still needs to recover from surgery, but apart from that he will be fine hopefully. Of course the first day after the surgery can be dangerous and very important. Let’s hope and pray that he will be fine. But over all let us thank the Lord for what he did in Eslams life today and for the strength he gave the mother and us. Everything is in his hands!
Little Eslam is still very sick and not improving and so his doctors at Sheba Hospital had to decide today what they can do for him and if a surgery might help.
After two echoes and long discussions, they came to the conclusion that they want to take him into high-risk surgery tomorrow morning. They want to repair his aortic valve which is really dangerous but the only hope they see for him. They told us that there is a risk of 20% that he will die in the surgery, but if they don’t do it, they expect him to die within the next two or three weeks.
This is such difficult news and I can’t imagine how his mother has to feel. We are praying for Eslam, his mother and all the medical staff tomorrow! This surgery is so dangerous but there is still hope that God, through the skilled hands of the physicians and surgeons, will heal this little boy. Thank you for joining us in prayer.
Eslam is not in a good condition. He is stable, but according to the doctor in Sheba Hospital, is very sick. Today they had to connect him to a kidney dialysis machine because he barely urinates. Hopefully this will help.
His mother knows that there is still hope, but she also knows that Eslam is very sick. Normally she greets us with a smile, but today she wasn’t happy. She has a hard time.
Please keep praying for Eslam in this uncertain time and for strength for his mother.
Our little Eslam was extubated yesterday evening in the Pediatric ICU at Sheba Hospital, but a few hours later he suddenly stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating so his doctors had to resuscitate him.
He is now intubated again and he is receiving a lot of medication. Please pray for him to recover soon and also for his mom who is really worried about her son and was bursting into tears today.
Eslam is still intubated in the Pediatric ICU at Sheba Hospital. He lost a lot of fluids in the last days and looks better but didn’t make much progress other than that. He still needs a lot of support: he gets dialysis, a lot of medicine to keep his blood pressure high enough, and much more. Every time I ask a doctor how he is doing, they tell me at some point that they have to wait and see.
Eslam’s mother is one of the friendliest women I’ve ever met. She greets us wherever she sees us in the hospital and is willing to help us out wherever she can. Please keep praying for Eslam, as he has still a long way ahead of him!
Little Eslam is slowly getting better. It was a rough week for him as he wasn’t in a good condition. But today at Sheba Hospital, his doctor told me that he’s finally getting better. He improved much since yesterday and hopefully he can also be extubated soon if he’s continuing to improve the same way. He still has fluids which he needs to get rid of but otherwise he’s on a good way. Thank God for this great improvement. When I met his mother several times today in the hallways of the hospital, I realized how happy she was. She smiled so often and I was just so grateful and happy for her. Surely it was a rough week not knowing what might happen to Eslam, but even if he hasn’t fully recovered yet, we have a reason to praise the Lord for what he did in Eslam’s life. But not only in his, also in his mother’s. I’m so glad that she’s doing well and enjoying her time with the other Gaza moms in hospital. We pray for full healing for this little boy. Hopefully he can be awake and fully recovered soon.
After the weekend, we received the good news that Eslam’s doctors at Sheba Hospital were able to successfully close his chest on Friday morning. This is a good step, but Eslam is still in a critical situation. He has a lot of fluids build-up in his body and the doctors are trying to get rid of them with medications and the chest drain.
We are thankful for every step Eslam is making as we have seen many kids not surviving the ECMO or dying shortly after coming off it, but we need to keep praying for Eslam and his sweet mother! They need our support!
Little Eslam stayed stable in Sheba Hospital’s Pediatric ICU during the last two days after coming off the ECMO. His chest is still open and there are no plans yet when they will close it. His doctor told me very honestly, that he was okay the last days and they were able to reduce some medication but he is still getting very much support and they don’t know when they will make the next steps.
Eslam’s mother is staying very strong in all of this and I admire how she is so kept together while her only son is in such a critical situation. Please keep praying for Eslam that he will improve and for everyone taking care of him!
Early this morning I went to the Sheba Hospital to be with Eslam’s mother during her son’s Catheterization. After only two hours, the doctor already came out and told us that the Cath went all well, was only diagnostic and they saw that there is some narrowing in his BT shunt but nothing concerning. But during this conversation, I also heard that Eslam is still on ECMO which they had to put Eslam on last weekend because his blood pressure and oxygen saturations kept dropping and didn’t stabilize. They couldn’t figure out what the problem was and so it was a very dangerous process to take him off again and the doctors didn’t know what to expect.
But thanks be to God, later in the day they were able to first decrease the ECMO support and then take him off it completely. Eslam is kind of stable now but still in a very critical and dangerous situation. His mother was so strong during the whole day! She surely was afraid over the life of her only son but she stayed strong for him. She showed me a lot of pictures of him how he was a happy little boy a few weeks ago, so hard to believe that he is in such a bad condition now.
Please keep praying for Eslam, his mom and his doctors! God have mercy!
Today at Sheba Hospital, a lot was going on in little Eslam’s room. He will have a Cath tomorrow so he was getting a CT today which needed a lot of preparation to stabilise him. That’s why there were always nurses and doctors in his room and we couldn’t really enter without disrupting them.
But we’ve met his lovely mother a few times. She is really nervous because of the Cath. She knows that her son is not a hundred percent stable and is scared that there will be complications.
Tomorrow Eslam’s doctors will see if the blood flows well through his shunt. If not, probably an intervention will be necessary. Please pray for our little boy, that he will get through his Cath without any problems.
When I visited Eslam today nurses were preparing him to go to a CT scan. Since he was in a bad condition and had to be resuscitated early this morning, they wanted to find out what the cause was. They were suspecting that he might have had a thrombus. While they were preparing everything, he suddenly deteriorated again. Overall his condition was really unstable and at some point it wasn’t clear if he was going to make it.
Once doctors stabilised him as well as possible, they did an echo. The cause for Eslam’s deterioration was probably that the BT shunt which they had placed in yesterday’s surgery was closed. Thank God the surgeons were able to open Eslam’s chest and open it again. His pulmonary blood flow is now restored and his oxygen saturation up again. When I visited him later in the day, he was doing much better and was stable.
During all of this his mother was really terrified and broke out in tears at least once. She was really scared. I’m glad that I was there with her to accompany and encourage her. Many times during the procedure she would walk back into the ICU to check what doctors were doing in her son’s room.
We left the hospital with confidence that Eslam is in God’s hands along with the continuous care of skilled doctors and nurses at Sheba Hospital who were instrumental today in saving Eslam’s life, having found the cause for his deterioration. Please continue to pray for his recovery and his very worried mother.
Eslam had his first surgery today at Sheba Hospital. At first they had planned to do a cath, but then decided that it was better to do the surgery directly. The surgeon and doctors weren‘t sure what exactly to expect. They first wanted to open his chest and see how the condition of his heart really was. If it was alright they would place a stent or BT shunt. Unfortunately his heart condition was worse than expected.
Later the doctor told us that they didn’t know if he would survive the surgery or if they might need to put him on ECMO. Thank God the surgery went quite well, better than the doctors had expected since his heart is in a really bad condition. In the end they somehow fixed his pulmonary artery. Because his heart is very hypoplastic, he had almost no pulmonary blood flow. After the surgery, his blood flow in the pulmonary artery is now much better which is really good news.
While waiting for her son to come out of surgery, Eslam’s mom had a lot of support by the other Gaza moms in hospital.
The first day of recovery is still critical, so we pray that he will recover soon. Pray also for his mom that she will be fine during their stay in hospital.
Yesterday afternoon, little four-month-old Eslam and his mother arrived via ambulance to Sheba Medical Center. Eslam and his mother are from Gaza and are now here to get the best possible treatment for Eslam. When I talked to the doctors about his condition, they told me that he is very sick and not really stable. Before they can start any treatment, they have to stabilise him. In the next week, the doctors will probably do a CT scan as well as other tests to plan his treatment better. He has single ventricle defect which means that one of the ventricles of his heart doesn’t work properly.
While I was talking to Eslam’s mother and getting to know her, Eslam’s blood pressure suddenly dropped to a dangerous level. Thank God the doctors and nurses in the ICU were able to stabilise him. Of course his mother was really frightened and worried for her child. They are still at the beginning of their time here and of Eslam’s treatment. She doesn’t know what is going to happen to her beautiful little child or how the time will be. Since Eslam’s heart is very complex and his condition is not so good right now, he and his mother will probably stay a long time in hospital. Please pray for them while they’re here with us.
We pray for this little boy’s protection and for that of his young mother also. We are thankful for this child’s life, and trusting God for the best possible care for him at the hands of the capable and professional medical staff working at Sheba Hospital.
The last days at Sheba Hospital were very scary for Eslam and especially his mother. Two days ago in the evening his heart stopped for about seven minutes. He was reintubated to stabilise him and remained on ventilator until the doctors were sure he would remain stable.
