Help Support Eli's Journey

Eli Harshman is an active, bright, and full of life 3 year old boy. He is the youngest of 3 brothers, and loves Mickey Mouse. Eli has been attending St. Paul's Early Childhood Learning Center since August of 2019. He has loved his teachers: Ms. Jamie and Ms. Amy. Our family has enjoyed many of the church children events, including the Breakfast with Santa and the Disney Sing-along Spaghetti dinner. Although we call a different church our home church, St. Paul's has been a second church home for our Eli, and we are so grateful for this congregation. 

On Christmas Eve 2020, our family was attending a socially distanced outside family gathering. As we were leaving the party, Eli was balancing on a parking lot bumper, as he has often done in the past, and he slipped and fell right on his forehead. He cried very hard and for a very long time. After a few days of vomiting after he ate, we took Eli to Sarasota Memorial's ER, thinking he might have a concussion. The ER doctor said it was probably a concussion. She said to come back if the vomiting continued.


After continuing to vomit daily, our pediatrician referred us to a neurologist. The soonest appointment was 3 weeks away. My poor little Eli couldn't wait that long. He needed to get his head scanned. We assumed a scan would show swelling or fluid in his brain.


We decided to drive up to All Children's Hospital (ACH) in St. Pete on 1/6/21. My husband and I are both science teachers at Sarasota High School, so we drove up after school, thinking we would be back by bedtime to tuck our other two boys into bed.


The ER doctor at ACH performed a CT scan, and the moment that every parent thinks about but pushes away for fear of paralyzation came true for my husband and I. The doctor said that the scan showed a very large mass on Eli's brain, right frontal lobe to be exact. Eli was admitted to ACH intensive care unit that evening. An MRI was performed the next day on 1/7/21, and a craniotomy was performed on my sweet 3 year old on 1/8/21. He recovered remarkably well, and we were sent home 3 days later on 1/11/21. The next day on 1/12/21, we were called up to the ACH Oncology Outpatient clinic to discuss the pathology results.


It was found from the pathology report that Eli's tumor was a large, plum sized, aggressive, Class IV malignant brain tumor. The actual classification is an embryonal tumor with multilayered rosettes. The positive news is that he had a total resection (all the tumor was removed according to a follow up MRI). He will undergo 3-6 rounds of chemotherapy at ACH. Each round, he will stay at the hospital for 3-4 weeks. He will come home for a few days in between each cycle to allow his body a break, and then he will repeat this cycle.


In the two weeks that followed his diagnosis, Eli has had surgery to place a port in his chest, a lumbar puncture (spinal tap), an EKG, an EEG, an Echocardiogram, an audio test, and a renal function test. He began his first round of chemotherapy on 1/27/21. 


It will be a long, hard journey for this little guy, but he is strong. We pray for strength for his body during chemotherapy, wisdom and care by his medical team to make the best decisions in his treatment plan, and strength for his family as we navigate feelings and emotions that every parent pushes away because they are too painful to imagine. 


I will be taking a 60 day unpaid leave of absence from my teaching duties. The treatments will go past those 60 days, so we will need to cross that bridge when we get there. My biggest concern though, from a financial perspective, is the loss of my health insurance after those 60 days, if I cannot go back to the classroom. 


We are grateful for our village, near and far, who have showered our family with more love and support than we could imagine. 


With love,
Andy, Krissy, Zack, Carter, and Eli Harshman