Tragic-Baby Born Without A Nose Dies At Age 2

Eli Thompson, the boy who made the news
when he was born in 2015 without a nose
due to a rare condition (read here) has
died at the age of 2 in Alabama.



Eli was born prematurely with congenital
arhinia — a condition so rare it reportedly
affects only one in nearly 200 million births.



The condition can cause trouble with
breathing and eating. His soft palate also
did not develop fully.



At only 5 days old, he
received a tracheotomy. All through his
short life, he required constant care.



Caring
for a baby with the same condition Eli
suffered from is known to take a lot of
work.



A story about Eli's birth written by
Today.com, read: “Mom and dad need to
suction the tracheotomy at least two times
a day and clean around it.



They also have to
change the ties that hold the tracheotomy
in place because the spit-up and milk that
catches on them can irritate the skin and
lead to infection.



When he sleeps, he wears
a heart monitor, which sounds an alarm
when Eli’s heart rate increases from
crying.”



In spite of all the challenges involved in
raising him, he was precious to his parents
and recently, on May 31, Eli's mum, Brandi
McGlathery posted a photo of herself with
Eli to Facebook and left a caption that told
of how special he was.



“It’s been a LONG road, but we have come a
LONG way, my baby. I made mistakes, I had
short comings, & I still have days where I
get so overwhelmed with you, your brother
& sister that I wanna curl up and cry, but I
have found myself in you.




You made me
grow up, & you taught me what
unconditional love is. You will forever be
the little boy that busted my heart wide
open.



Thank you for rescuing me, and
blessing me with what I never knew I
needed.”


Sadly, Eli died on Saturday night and his
grieving father, Jeremy Finch, took to
Facebook on Sunday to share the sad news
along with the link to an article about the
boy’s death.



He wrote: “We lost our little buddy last
night. I’ll never be able to make sense of
why this happened, and this will hurt
deeply for a long time.”



He continued, “But I’m so blessed to have
had this beautiful boy in my life! He finished
his race a lot earlier than we would have
liked, but it was God’s time to bring him
back home.



I’ll forever look forward to
seeing him at the gates of Heaven waiting
on me to give me another one of his
famous fist bumps! I love you little man.


Rest in peace with my Father.”
Eli was “very, very bright and happy, always
smiling and giving everybody fist bumps,”
Finch told the website, adding that he
communicated by using baby sign
language, and that he’d started speech
therapy at home with a speaking valve.


“His
favorite sign was ‘cookie,'” he said.


“He
touched a lot of people’s lives. A lot of
people cared about him.”