Super Baby!

Some bad news this morning followed by some good news…seems to be the norm nowadays.  First of all, the results are back on the spinal tap and it wasn’t completely clean.  There was only one cell that was deemed cancerous.  According to the doctor, this is pretty close to clear, but we will need to have another spinal tap on Wednesday and then depending on the blood work tomorrow and Wednesday morning perhaps bring him home.

That’s right, the doctor is so impressed with his recent blood work that he believes that he is possibly in early remission and based on his increased ability to fight infection he is ready to send him home on Wednesday after the spinal tap.  We were shocked based on what we had decided only yesterday, but he really didn’t expect the blood results to come back the way they are.  His ability to fight infection has increased and his platelets have increased without another transfusion which is a very good sign of improvement.

Now remission does not mean that he is cured, which was my original thought before further education.  Remission is just a sign that the cancer is “under control”, but not gone.  If he does get to come home, it will be until his next round of chemo.  We are still working on getting Mason tested as the transplant still needs to occur, which if all goes well could occur after the second round of chemo. 

Now just to temper the potential excitement, this is all still a maybe and hinges on the next two days.  We realize that things could change just as quickly in the opposite direction as quickly as they changed to the positive this morning.  So for now, we will just continue to pray and hope that our little family will be home together for at least a week.  When Cutler was in the NICU he consistently beat expectations and so he continues to do so in his battle against cancer.  Will continue to keep you closely updated over the next few days until we know for sure.

Special shout out to Aunt Ellen for sitting with Cutler tonight and letting Melanie and I go out for a nice relaxing dinner tonight. 

What? Run after the ball?

Mason finally got the opportunity to play soccer outside on the grass this weekend and I think he enjoyed it even more.  Although his play appears to be regressing a bit from his two goal debut in the first game, he is still having a lot of fun.  We need to work on his aggression and getting after the ball a bit more actively, but I blame the passive attitude on his solid Montessori education.  🙂  They have done such a good job of keeping your hands to yourself in school, that Mason sometimes runs with his hands behind his back just like he would when walking in line at school.  It’s a good thing for manners, but something we must break for sports.

Apparently one thing we don’t have to instill, yet, is toughness.  Mason was on a breakaway and took a pretty hard fall forward.  I fully expected tears to follow, but he proudly got up and looked at me and proclaimed, “I didn’t cry!” and started back towards the ball.

Breakaway!

And down goes Mason, down goes Mason

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day to be outside for some very entertaining four year old soccer followed by a nice tex mex lunch on the patio with Mason, mommy, papa, grandma, grammy, and aunt Ellen.  Aunt Pat was gracious enough to hang at the hospital with Cutler so we could have a big family outing.  I suppose at some point I should introduce all of the players as we are getting a great amount of support and free time as they graciously hang with Cutler at pretty much any time we want.  But that is for another post when I am suffering from writer’s block more than I am right now.  Besides, Curb is on and I need some good comedy.

Tickling his own toes now

We finally met 2 on 1 with Dr. Goldman today, rather than hearing second hand his thoughts and now we may be into an even greater information overload, but in the end it is almost all good news.  First of all, in the last post I mentioned that Cutler’s spinal tap came back clean.  As it turns out, that was just a blood culture and we are still awaiting the results and expect to hear back tomorrow on the results.  This is the only semi bad news.

The good news is that the doctor believes that Cutler is responding better than expected and even offered for us to bring him home for seven to ten days before his next round of chemo.  We were pretty honest that we were frightened of this idea and he mentioned that although he is willing to let us bring him home his preference is that we keep him in the hospital and so we all came to agreement that Cutler will remain for close observation and to continue to hide him from potential infections.  But he is pretty comfortable with the idea that he will come home with us after the second round is complete.

He does want to go ahead and get Mason in for the blood test to see if he is a marrow match this week if possible.  Dr Goldman believes that if Cutler continues to respond the way he is, it is feasible to consider a marrow transplant as early as after the second round of chemo.  They do have someone in their office that does an amazing job of drawing blood from children and so I feel a bit better about it.  Apparently they play with Mason for a bit to get him to relax and rub some type lotion on the arm to help it numb the area before inserting th e needle.  We haven’t told Mason yet, but it is looking like we should go ahead and get this out of the way.  I would love for him to be a match, because I know that he would be so proud that he would have helped save his life by providing a part of him.  He really is an incredible big brother.

Eating solid food is fun

On to more non hospital stuff, we did start feeding Cutler some solid food for the first time today.  Despite it being his first time he did fairly well.  Of course it is hard to tell how much he actually ate, but he appeared to like it and had his usual smile working away.  We are hoping that adding solid food to the diet will help calm the appetite.  Last night with a three hour time frame I believe I fed him close to 20 ounces of milk and formula.  Unfortunately he awoke during the 12:30 am vitals, but fortunately he did sleep through the 4:30 am check in and stealing of blood all the way until 6:30 am when he woke up not screaming for milk but smiling and ready to play. 

Melanie and I did get some quality alone time with him before the family gladly came down and sat with him throughout the day to give us some quality alone time at home as well.  Alone time in that Melanie was alone to nap in her room while I was alone to watch football in the media room while Mason was off on a play date at his good buddy’s Parker.  🙂  Thanks to Karin and Darren for wearing him out for the second Sunday in a row.  He really does enjoy the time over there.

And finally one more picture of Cutler, as we have stored up quite a few over the past few days.  This one is my favorite as Cutler and I were getting some good quality cuddle time together on the air mattress.  It’s almost as good as the mattresses at the W.

Ahhh, the joys of belly time

Ok, actually a few final words.  Somehow I forgot to work this into my past posts, but we got the news back today on Cutler’s spinal tap culture and it was 100% clean with no blasts.  I believe this means at least one week without a spinal tap.  Cutler and cutler’s back thank the chemo for its effectiveness. 

Also, today was a very good day for Cutler.  He spent most of it napping and eating, but wasn’t very fussy at all.  He did pee on Aunt Ellen tonight, so his ornery side is still fully in place.  Right now he is fast asleep and without requiring medicine throughout the night I am hoping for a full night of sleep so that I can be well rested in order to help convince Mason tomorrow that he belongs on his feet during the soccer game.

That’s all for now, Thank You and Good Night.

Had a great dinner tonight with Melanie, Mason, Grandpa, Maude and Vivian at Nate’s where there was some live music.  A very good blues band and Mason has become a efficianado of good music over time.  As soon as dinner was over he went with Melanie to check out the band in person.  Naturally he had to go to the front of the room to stand directly in front of the band and imitate the drummer.  Next thing you know Mason has the tambourine in his hand and is just grooving away to the beat.

It wasn’t a minute into the song and away goes the tambourine and the robot inside starts to break out and Mason is all over the dance floor.  He even did some break dancing spinning on the floor, unfortunately I don’t yet have that on video.

By the time it was over, Mason had the restaurant cheering for him and the band calling him out and he didn’t shy away once.  Perhaps a career in entertaining is right around the corner if the stuntman route doesn’t play out.

My apologies for the video layout.  Not sure how to rotate.  It worked differently on my laptop.  So I suppose you can just turn your head 180 degrees for your true viewing pleasure.

Blood Drive Benefiting Cutler

Tiffany Solis, Cutler’s teacher from North Star Learning Center, has put together a blood drive to benefit Cutler to be held at Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church located at 3901 Northstar Rd in Richardson, between Plano Pkwy and Renner Rd.  This is scheduled for Friday, October 9th from 12:00pm to 4:00pm.  It will take place in room M-204 on the second floor of the church.  I believe that it is prefered to have a time scheduled as only so many people are allowed at one time.  Please contact Tiffany at andrewsmommy28@yahoo.com or by phone at 214-335-3007 for more information.

Also a very special thank you to Tiffany for putting this together and for all of the other wonderful things you have done for us.  For someone that has known us for so little time I am amazed at the effort you are going through for us.  As I said in an email to Tiffany earlier today, it is a shame that something like this had to happen in order for me to see how many wonderful people there are in this world.  It has touched me beyond description and is helping me drive to be a better person.  (Just don’t ask my mom about this, my tone used at home is still on the list of things to improve.  🙂  )  Nothing but good will come of this, including Cutler winning this long and difficult fight.