Elijah Pishion
Elijah lives in Dufur with his Dad Jerry, his Mom Sonya, older brother Noah, and little brother Asher. Jerry works at the Dufur School as a Custodian and Bus Driver and volunteers at the Dufur Fire Department. Sonya is a stay at home Mom and is a Cub Scout leader for the Dufur Cub Scouts. Elijah’s fight began in April of this year. Elijah was a healthy baseball playing 6 year old little boy one day and the next day he woke up with swollen eyes and face. It was his brother Noah’s 9th birthday and we were having a party, we figured if it would go away on its own but as the day went on he started getting lethargic and his stomach started to bloat, we took him in to ER and got misdiagnosed with mumps, after two days of waiting for the cheek swab to come back his legs started to swell. We took him to his primary Dr. and they wanted to run more tests and talked back and forth to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, Elijah did a urine test and that was all they needed to know, it was his kidneys. Doernbecher wanted to admit him for overnight so we made the drive to Portland. On the way to their we were called and told to get to the nearest hospital as soon as possible. They were concerned Elijah’s heart may stop at any moment because tests showed his potassium levels were extremely high.
We made the decision to continue to Doernbecher. Once inside we were rushed around with doctors and nurses. Elijah was hooked up to everything you could imagine. The pediatric Nephrologist (kidney specialist) thought he would need a couple days on Prednisone and be able to go home, but the Prednisone didn’t work. Two days later Elijah went in for surgery to get an Hemo Dialysis port put in and to have a biopsy of his kidneys; he had kidney failure. That night Elijah started dialysis which went on every day for a week. Just when it felt like we were losing him he would turn the corner. Then we had to make the tough decision to have the port moved, because it was already in for too long and was a high risk of infection, or chance it and keep it in a couple more days. We chose the safer route and had the port moved to a long term location. Eventually Elijah no longer needed dialysis. The medication finally started to work and he was slowly getting better. We ended up being in the hospital two full weeks; two weeks we never left his side.
Although it felt like forever, we were finally able to go home and our family could all be together again. Little did we know that he would have to come back weekly for infusions. These infusions eventually got his kidneys to respond and we were able to lessen the trips to every other week, then every three weeks. As of August 14th Elijah’s kidneys are finally working properly and infusions are no longer needed!
Elijah will be getting another biopsy in a few months when he’s more stable to find out how much damage his kidneys took, at this point they are not sure. Elijah has Nephrotic Syndrome; a rare kidney disease that affects about 1 in 50,000 children a year. Nephrotic Syndrome is when you leak protein into your urine instead of your blood cells where it is needed. Nephrotic Syndrome puts you at a very high risk for blood clots and infection. It is unknown what caused Elijah to get the disease and there is no cure. Elijah is still tapering off the prednisone and he will be on a cancer drug that kills his immune system for at least a year. Although Elijah is currently in remission, this disease is very difficult to treat and they don’t say “if” it relapses they say “when” it relapses. Elijah is strong and he will never give up. We pray for a miracle!
If you would like to follow his Facebook page it is: Elijah The Fearless
