Cutler showing his game face

So we heard from the doctor today around noon and first and foremost I must tell you that if anyone was to have the misfortune to experience this they would be lucky to have a doctor such as the one we are blessed with.  Dr Joel Weinthal has been incredible all weekend long and has the ability to make me feel more confident with each meeting.

Now onto the news.  Cutler has been diagnosed with Infantile Acute Mylocytic Leukemia, which is very rare for infants.  According to the doctor there are roughly only 900 cases per year of this particular type of AML and so Cutler continues to prove that he is indeed a unique and special baby.

The nurse has now begun administering the chemotherapy.  Because the objective of chemotherapy is to destroy all white cells in the system in an effort to eliminate the bad ones, the biggest concern right now is infection.  And so he was moved into a new room with a special air filtration in place.  Because of the concern for infection he will be in the hospital for at least a month before maybe getting to get go home for a few days before coming back in and starting round two. 

The doctor estimates that after three rounds we can begin to look at bone marrow transplants.  Many people have brought up the potential of being a donor and we appreciate this very much, but from what I understand so far is that the marrow would more than likely have to come from Mason.  Mason has a 1 in 4 chance of being a match.  If Mason isn’t a match, he is extremely confident that he can find a cord blood match.  But that is further down the road and so more information on that is to come.

As for Cutler, as you can see from the picture above, he is still in good spirits.  Around 4:30 this morning he appeared to have lost the effect of all of the anesthesia and returned to his jovial self and decided to talk and play with me for about an hour before finally falling back asleep.  He is rather swollen, but this is from being sick as well as being pumped full of liquids.  Again, despite all of this he is still very talkative and quick to flash his trademark smile.

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.  More updates to come…