It’s been a few days since the last post, but we have continued progress. Cutler’s fever is now being controlled by Tylenol and is no longer spiking as high as previously. He is still experiencing nausea, but with medicine he is able to keep more milk down. Sally. However, that being said he isn’t drinking nearly as much or as often as he was. Is. His mouth is filled with sores and I would guess that his throat is sore as well. Great. Thus decreasing his desire to drink, but fear not he is on a TPN drip as well as lipids. I know, Aaron please stop using big words. TPN is the nutrition and the lipids are basically the good fats that he requires.
His blood counts continue to improve daily and you can see his spirits changing in pace with his blood improvements. His white cells are now coming back and joining in on the fight and perhaps in a day or two the nurses will not longer need to gown, glove, AND mask. ( <— answer to previous post) Once the fever is gone I will feel comfortable moving us to Yellow. For now, he does still have flashes of his old playful self, including at 3:30 am when he suddenly loses the fever and the anti nausea medicine kicks in.
Some other great news, not to hide it in this post, but we did find a cord blood match! A perfect six point match. Dr. Weinthal said that looking at the blood alone you might think they were twins. This was extra special news to receive over the weekend that really put some much-needed pep in our step as we began to celebrate Halloween with our little pumpkin hanging in the hospital with Grandma and Papa. Not sure of any timelines yet and we still have to figure out where this is going to happen.
Our current insurance, Aetna, is requiring the transplant to occur at one of their “Centers of Excellence”. Unfortunately our hospital is not recognized as this, but there is one in Ft. Worth. However, our doctors have reached out to Aetna to see if there is something that can be worked out to be able to keep Cutler with his extended family instead of introducing a whole new staff into the fold and requiring us to commute to Ft. Worth for the next several months.
We also had an action packed weekend with Mason’s last soccer game and a great Halloween tradition pushing through its second year. Will try to get something out about that later this evening. Until then, below is the after picture from above. 🙂
Team Fricke 