Eli and Quilter

Eli and Quilter

Eli's Story

Eli is a wonderful 13-year-old young man with an interesting and remarkable story. He has been on a miraculous journey his whole life and this is the beginning of the next chapter.

Eli began having seizures when he was 17 months old and these quickly progressed to become life-threatening. After much testing and trying several medications, it was determined that the best thing for Eli was brain surgery to try and stop them. On May 17,1999, Eli underwent a modified hemispherectomy, the removal of most of the left side of his brain. This surgery left him seizure free, but paralyzed on the right side of his body and without speech. He has, over the last 11 years regained his speech, his ability to walk and much use of his right hand, in what we feel is a remarkable recovery.

But this world is a two-handed world and in our desire to allow him to be as independent as possible, we recently applied for a service dog for him. We hope that this dog will not only assist him in carrying things, opening doors for him when his hand is full and helping him keep his balance when he is walking in his beloved mountains, we also hope that the dog will be a bridge to the rest of the world for him, helping him connect with others. We also know that the special bond he will have with the dog will only benefit him in ways we can't imagine right now.Join us as we move forward through his journey to his dog, and the rest of his life.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Dogs in our Home!

Yesterday, we had a visit from Power Paws and two dogs. They were beautiful yellow labs named Quail and Ilanya (I think I'm spelling it correctly). The dogs got pretty excited to see our cat and so were distracted by that for a while. Pippin was, of course, happy to see them.

The ladies from Power Paws had Eli take the dogs through several commands, inside and outside the home, getting him used to what it feels like, having to talk to the dogs in a particular way, even the best way to give a treat. He worked on having the dogs pick up their leashes and hand it to him, sit, down, stay, come, and also "go in" which is going under a table where he is seated and laying down underneath.

He has a lot of learning to do, but he seems to take to it well, and just lights up with a dog at his side. It was a good exercise and one step closer to our goal.

We are looking into a different high school than we originally thought, so we have to contact them and see how open they are to having a dog at school and begin that conversation.

Please stay tuned for news about our upcoming fundraisers!

Thanks so much for joining us on this journey!

The Goldstick Family
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