“Tell me the story again.”
Riding to his first Indiana Fever game in May, 15-year-old Eli Carver turned to his mother with a request.
He had heard pieces of the story before. But this time, he wanted to know everything.
As they drove toward Indianapolis, Southeast Fountain Elementary School teacher and high school cheer coach Amber Carver told her son how, within hours of birth, doctors weren’t sure he would survive. How an ice storm slowed the specialized ambulance — a “hospital on wheels” — racing him to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital. How for 10 days, his tiny body depended on an ECMO machine to do the work of his heart and lungs.
“I’ve been shocked ever since,” Eli said weeks later in a conversation with the Journal Review. “It’s still not real.”
The drive wasn’t just another trip to a basketball game. Eli had been invited by the hospital that saved his life as the game’s honorary Ball Kid, part of its ambassador program celebrating former patients’ journeys. In addition to being on the court during warmups and watching the game from a suite, he watched as the Jumbotron played a video telling his story before waving to thousands of fans.
For the first time, he wanted to understand how close he had come to never making the trip at all.
Eli’s journey to survival had begun 15 years earlier in a Crawfordsville delivery room with what was expected to be an ordinary birth. Born on Feb. 4, 2011, to Amber and the late John Carver of Veedersburg, Eli was a much-anticipated arrival.
“My husband — because of being a coach — he was a big person in the community as far as, you know, everybody knew him,” Amber said. “Everybody wanted to be there the day [Eli] was born.”
Minutes later, Amber noticed something was wrong. Eli wasn’t breathing normally.
“I looked at the nurse, and I could see the look on her face,” she said. “I don’t know that we really realized exactly how bad it was, even through the night when I was getting the phone calls. … I don’t know that I was really comprehending exactly how bad it was until she called that last time and said, ‘This is it. We have no other options.’ ”
Eli had been diagnosed with sepsis, a life-threatening condition which can rapidly lead to organ failure, contributing to 8 percent of infant deaths. His condition was rated an “11” on a scale of 1 to 10. Within the first 18 hours of his life, Eli was transported from Crawfordsville to Lafayette, and finally to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, where he spent 10 days on ECMO — extracorporeal membrane oxygenation — an advanced form of life support which not all infants survive.
“Once he finally got to Indianapolis, I finally was told that the reason they didn’t send me on to Lafayette or to Indy was they wanted to make sure he got there alive, and thought there would be no sense to send me to Indianapolis if he wasn’t,” Amber recalled.
Six long weeks in the hospital passed before the Carvers’ nightmare was over. During that time, Amber made the trip from Veedersburg to Indianapolis every single day to be with her son.
“The day that I can remember is the day that they finally let me hold him again,” she said. As for how she and her husband made it through those six weeks, their mutual support was invaluable. “I think moments like that can be so stressful in a relationship, and you know, it was hard, but we did it for one another. He was our dream and everything we had always wanted.”
Long before doctors fought to save Eli’s life, the Carvers had already experienced what they considered their first miracle. John Carver’s quadriplegia had led doctors to believe the couple would never have children. But after pursuing in vitro fertilization, Amber gave birth to the son they had once thought impossible.
“I felt like he was always this miracle baby to begin with, because it just was not something we ever thought would happen,” she said.
Today, Eli is an active, outgoing teenager, enjoying the summer before his sophomore year at Fountain Central High School, where he’s officially known as the Mustangs’ biggest fan. He loves to play basketball and golf, in addition to managing the football team his dad had coached.
“I think just being a manager, it makes me think of what my dad used to do when he was alive,” he said.
“I’ve been told by several nurses and doctors through the years that a lot of kids that are on ECMO don’t have the outcome like he does — but even if they do survive, there’s a lot of major health impairments,” Amber said. “He’s the exact opposite of that. They’re always amazed with him when they see him.”
More than his energy and familial passion for sports, Amber is impressed with Eli’s kindness.
“He is one of the kindest people I’ve ever been around, honestly,” she said. “He loves everybody. He’s a friend to everybody. … He’s had so much loss in his life, but yet he still is this happy kid who finds the best in everything.”
She added a word of advice for other parents experiencing a child’s illness.
“The medical world has come so far,” Amber said. “It’s so scary to think that your child’s life is in their hands, but they’re the experts, and just rely on your faith in God and that he’s going to work through them and have your child hopefully thrive in the future.”
Later this month, Eli looks forward to mingling with the Colts as part of the Peyton Manning ambassador program. In the meantime, he’ll be practicing any sport he can get his hands on in preparation for his dream of becoming a coach, just like his dad.
“I think he would be proud of the person he is,” Amber said. “He’s a good person and a good kid.”
