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Aside from a succesful bone marrow transplant, Cutler’s Christmas wish has already come true…his two front teeth are in!  If you look close enough, his two bottom teeth are right there and based on the amount of slobber he has many more quickly on the way.  Ironically we noticed the first one poking through on the dreaded Sept 11th when this whole madness started…also the same time that my watch stopped.  I am thinking I will just get a new watch, been wanting a new one for a while anyway.  🙂

The spinal tap went well.  This time around it actually occurred at 9 am and wasn’t delayed so we didn’t have to deal with his hunger pains.  He went right to sleep and continued to sleep for a little while after, which was long overdue.  I think this one finally caused some soreness in the back as he was consistently rolling to his side.  The doctor did come back and said that the initial look under the microscope was clean, but that we are still waiting for the test from the lab.  Apparently the initial look is done with just a sample of the fluid whereas the lab runs it through the centrifuge to push all of the cells together, so that is the real test, but he expects it to be clean.

Today was also Cutler’s last day of chemo for the initial round.  This is the time that he is most susceptible to infection, so we are doing our best to limit the visitors and are no longer giving him the number of kisses he deserves.  We had hoped that he might be able to come home for a few days before starting the next round of chemo, but the doctor believes that it would be best to just keep him in the hospital where he can be observed and treated quickly if an infection occurs and so we quickly agreed that if it is best for him there is no reason to take a chance and so he will be in the hospital at least through the next round as well.  Initial talks are that he will undergo two more rounds and that perhaps after the third round we will be ready for a transplant. 

Mason was able to pay a visit today and Cutler’s eyes really open up and smile when he sees Mason walk through the door.  As you can see from the pictures, he is already a very happy boy but it really does elevate when he sees big brother come bouncing through the door calling out his name.  He loves his robot and funky chicken dances and all of the silly faces he makes for him.  We really miss having both of the boys at home, but patience will help us win this battle.

Thanks to a couple of friends we learned that it might not be as easy to just head down to a local Carter bloodcare center and give them Cutler’s name and date of birth.  So, today we reached out to Carter and created a sponsor account.  So now, if you happen to stop by or donate blood at any Carter site or sponsored blood drive you can just give them this sponsor #:  SPON 048570.  Also, we are under the belief that now that we have set up the account you should be able to just give them Cutler’s name and they will be able to track it down.

While setting up the account, the rep at Carter did happen to mention that there were several donations already in his name waiting for the account to be opened so Cutler asked that I post the video above to help him thank everyone for their donations, but also to thank everyone that follows the updates and supports us with their thoughts and prayers.  We have heard from many many many people from all over, people we know, and people we don’t know and one of the main things we have learned from this whole experience is that there is a ton of good in this world and that even a mention of “hey, we are thinking of you” goes a tremendously long way to support our spirits.  So thanks again to everyone for their thoughts and prayers.  We are completely overwhelmed with the support we have and continue to receive.

Morning y'all

So it would appear that Cutler now thinks that the 4am medicine call is also the time to wake up and start playing.  He slept quite well throughout the night, even including the wonderful force feeding of ambigel.  This medicine usually irritates him so much that he won’t back to sleep, but this morning it was not an issue.  However, come 4am when they started the chemo he was more than happy to get up and talk and play (see above photo) and even eat.  Should be fun to break him of this habit once he gets back home.

Got to meet the fourth and final doctor from the practice today as he came in for a visit earlier than any other doctor so far.  He actually was in the room by 8:15 and he had the usual good news.  But even better is that Cutler’s blast count is not detectable.  Blast cells would be the immature bad white cells, so that is a very good thing.  His white cell count continues to drop, which is customary for the chemo treatment and his blood count hovered near the same as yesterday.  Platelets dropped almost in half, but the doctor is not concerned.

Cutler is scheduled to undergo another spinal tap tomorrow morning.  This will hopefully be the last one for a bit as the previous tap showed that for all intents and purposes the leukemia was no longer present in the spinal fluid.  So this tap is to draw fluid one more time to validate as well as shoot just a bit more chemo in for good measure.  Not sure if we have mentioned before, but all of the bumps/lesions on Cutler do appear to be gone, yet another sign of the chemo working away.

Dyanmic Duo

Unfortunately this photo is not from the hospital, but today has been a long day and so I haven’t had time to take any good pictures to post.  First of all, it was more of a long day for dad than for Cutler.  Cutler had another uneventful day and even woke without a swollen eye despite his mother staying with him last night.  The doctor is still happy with the way Cutler is reacting to the medicine and in fact his platelets were in the 60’s, the highest they have been, and the target is 75 so Cutler is continuing to prove that he is a tough little fighter.  It’s Cutler’s toughness that helps both Melanie and I draw our own strength.

So other than Cutler’s continuing improvement, not much else is going on.  I did start back at work today and it was a bit more difficult getting moving than I had expected, but once I got back it was actually good to focus on work as a break from reality.  At first it was harder to actually talk to people about what is going on instead of just typing about it in the blog, but after talking to several people it became easier and the “speech” was a lot easier to work through.  Unfortunately, because I was at work, I missed the visit from the doctor who also provided a road map to help us understand further the days expected for treatment, rounds of chemo, and eventually the transplant.  I do have the paperwork, but haven’t had a chance to review but from what Melanie explained to me we are probably looking at Christmas in the hospital.  Perhaps Santa will be gracious enough to visit with a successful transplant.  Once I get a chance to look it over in more detail I will definitely put together a quick post about it.

A funny story about our doctor that just slipped into my head is his accent.  Well to be clear, the Oncology group here has four doctors and they rotate weeks with us while the other three work in the office.  The doctor that we have had for the past week is Dr Ghisoli and I am sure that I completely butchered the spelling, so my apologies if you are reading this.  As it turns out, he just moved into our neighborhood just around the corner from our house and was kind enough to throw out his address.  I have already done several walkbys and am confident we can make it there in under two minutes and probably under one minute in case of emergency.  Anyway, our good doctor is originally from Italy and then I believe he grew up in Venezuela.  He has this wonderful accent that every time he discusses the blood results I picture dracula.  I swear he sounds just like him every time he says blood and it is so hard to keep a straight face.  Probably funnier to me, but if you are ever here visiting and he comes in I will be sure to work the word blood into the conversation.  🙂

Last night was a bit of a rough night for Melanie.  Cutler woke several times throughout the night crying out and this is rather unusual for him as he has always been a sound sleeper.  Then when he finally woke for the morning, Melanie “noticed” the swollen right eye.  She swears that she didn’t have anything to do with it, so we will just go with the story that it must be the way he slept on it.  But fear not, the swelling is gone.