Connor's Journey

Ok so yes Bishop you were right the funny face is my stomach and my scar. The other day I was trying on new Team Donate Life gear for RAAM and me and my Mom noticed how my scar on my stomach looks just like a frown face. Now every time I look in the mirror without my shirt on it makes me totally laugh! So how could I resist the urge to really do it up? The only problem was that later on that night when I had to go to the ER for my stomach issue’s there was still marker on my belly! Do you have any idea how awkward it is to be in so much pain and have to take your shirt off so a nurse, doctor, and another nurse can check your heart and vitals and you have a frowney face with marker on this weird scar on your stomach?! Made the nurse laugh, I even had to laugh a little through the pain. Anyways I’m feeling better I laid around all day playing video games again with Elliot. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel normal again. A little advice if you color on yourself and you have to go to the hospital not forget you did it in the first place!

Last night Connor came into our room in a lot of pain in his stomach, especially under his right rib. After several hours of waves of pain bringing him to tears we decided we better take him to the ER. The Doctor ran labs and a CAT scan. His spleenal renal shunt seems to be fine and he has no signs of infection in his body but his gallbladder is a little big, but with no stones. They gave Connor some pain meds and he is home now sleeping. We will have some follow-up appointments to double check things but at this point it’s a wait and see situation.

Most of you know that Connor is an Honorary Fire Fighter with the City of Folsom? Well through all of the hospital junk Connor noticed a firefighter walk past his room he asked Jared to grab the guy and ask him what station he was from. Luckily the guy remembered Connor and came in to say hi. I was so touched that this young firefighter would take the time to come into Connors room and visit with him. I was also touched to hear even more fantastic stories if heroism about our cities Fire Chief Dan Haverty from one of his own firefighters. I continue to be grateful for all of the amazing role models our family has.

Uncle Ryan, Jim Felt, and Me

The other day I went to this special invite thing with my Uncle Ryan.  We got to meet Jim Felt. He is the creator of Felt bikes, he has bike racing teams in the Tour De France and his bikes are sold all over the world! I thought he was really cool, he told funny stories and was even nice enough to sign my cast. He told me it was really cool that I’m doing Race Across America. Thanks Jim:)

This weekend my parents were in Redding and Chico. My Mom was speaking at BloodSources Donor awards luncheon’s. There were about 250 people at each luncheon and they were all invited for donating ALOT of blood! Some people have donated over 100 times! I don’t know if you guys know this or not but I am alive today because of blood donation. One of the side effects of my Liver Disease is internal bleeding. One time I had a really big bleed and I don’t remember that much about it because I was pretty much passed out but I know that my Mom has told me a lot of times how thankful she was when the nurse came in with the bag of blood and hooked it up to me, she said that she could see the color start to come back into my face and lips and I could hold my head up again. All I remember is feeling really weak and sick.  Its kind of weird to think that some stranger saved my life that day and they will never know it. So today I wanted to send out a thankyou to all the blood donors out there, but I have a very special thank you to Joseph Covert. Yesterday when Joseph was called up at the luncheon to receive his 400 Centennial award my Mom and Dad said he was crying and after being given the cool blue award he turned and walked over to my parents and gave the award to them and asked them to give it to me! My Mom of course said she was crying and this time even my Dad was welling up. I’m not exactly sure how much blood Mr. Covert donated but I’m pretty sure it’s over 40 Gallons!  Thank you Mr. Covert. 

In honor of my new friend Joseph Covert

One of my crew members Diane Christie sent out a friendly challenge to all of Team Donate Life, she said “lets see who can reach their personal fundraising goal of $10,000 first “? I was feeling pretty good about my self until this past week when my teammate and surgeon Dr. Esquivel decided to call all of his friends and ask them to donate, now he is kicking my tail in the race! I swear everyday the guy has people signing on to donate? I heard he was a pretty amazing Doctor but I thought that meant in surgery? Apparently he is pretty amazing at fundraising too. Dont get me wrong I’m super happy that he is helping me get to my overall goal of $100,000.00 but I really want to win the race of reaching $10,000 first. I mean seriously “I’m an Ellison” and an Ellison never gives up and we always try our hardest. So if any of you awesome blog readers of mine want to help out I’d totally appreciate it! You can click on my the Team Donate Life link on my blog and click donate.  My Mom says I need to tell you it’s Non-profit too. Lets see who can win this race me or Dr. Esquivel?

I know that some of you already have donated and i wanted to thank you very much.

Have you ever had a favorite thing you liked to wear? Maybe that favorite thing is really old, and grungy looking? I have a favorite pair of tennis shoes. I’ll admit they are pretty tore up. They have been in Mountain Bike races with me and have been submerged in mud, they have pink paint stains on them from ramp painting, my Mom has washed them several times to make them smell better but I still just really like them. My Mom gets really upset when I wear them out with her because she says it looks like nobody loves me? She even took me out and bought me a new pair of shoes that I got to pick out but they just don’t feel as good? These blue ones are all worn in and they are super comfortable. Besides my Mom has this really ugly sweater that is big and grey with little balls all over it and there is hardly a day I don’t see her wearing that thing!

I dont think they are that bad?

Still have one good arm!

Ok so it’s official I have a cast for the next three weeks. I picked out Donate Life Green for the color of it. At the time I thought it was a good idea but then I started thinking how ridicules it’s gonna look on sunday morning when I pass the sacrament at church. Plus I’m kind of nervous that I’m going to drop the sacrament trays with my big green club hand. Of course my Mom said “too bad your still going to church and your still passing the sacrament”. So those of you that read this and go to church with me “I’m sorry if I spill your bread and water on Sunday if I do feel free to take it up with my Mom”. I thought I would still be able to ride my bike a little but turns out that a big hard green club makes it difficult to grip the handle bars on your bike? My Mom has these training videos for the bike trainer that you watch and it puts you through a really hard workout so I think that will be my form of workout until I talk someone into sawing this thing off my hand. I already asked my mom if I could, would she let me slid my hand out of the cast just for short bits…didn’t go over to well. Oh well it’s all good I’m super lucky that I only have to wear it for 3 weeks, and the guy Douglas that put it on me was really cool and he rides Mountain Bikes. If you check my comments section he has clips of his rides done with a helmet cam. I think I need one of those helmet cams so you guys can see what it’s really like to ride behind my Dad and his friends all day (lots of smack talk and show downs).

Amazing how bad a small crack in your wrist hurts?

Well on Tuesday I was really bored so I called my friend and asked him if he wanted to go on a mountain bike ride. He said “yes” and we were off! This by the way is the same friend that smashed his face into the back of a parked car the last time we road together. It started to rain and we were getting really muddy then my friend was on dirt and I was on road  and I was about to jump off a little drop to go to the dirt at the same time my friend went to  jump up, so when I jumped it hit him and I flew over  my handlebars and tumbled on the dirt.  I was trying really hard to protect my stomach and so instead I bent my wrist all the way forward. A couple seconds later the pain kicked in. OUCH!!!! My friend had to help me walk my bike like 3 miles home! It got dark and the rain just kept coming. I’m not gonna lie…I cried. Today we went to get it x-rayed because it hurt so much. I actually had to call my Mom from school. I miss so much school because of my Liver that my parents freak out if I miss extra days. It turns out I broke my wrist.  One of the worst parts was that my Mom didn’t want me to go in the first place but my Dad told her to relax. Bad idea. Note to self “always listen to your Mom”. The funniest part was that as we were leaving my house for the ride I said to my friend “the goal is to watch out for parked cars” and he said ” ya know what maybe this week your gonna do something stupid”. Well guess what…I did do something stupid I went riding with my friend that has really bad luck. I have to say he is a really good friend though he walked with me the whole way and held my bike and his the whole time.    Tomorrow I meet with the orthopedic doctor, I’ll keep you posted. I’m off to ride the trainer.