So Christmas has now come and gone and it was as difficult if not more difficult than expected.  I am sure it was much more difficult on us than Cutler, but very difficult just the same.  Melanie and I were both able to spend the majority of Christmas Eve with Mason with Melanie sleeping at the hospital and having to miss Santa’s presents for Mason on Sunday morning.  We were however able to spend the majority of the day with Mason together as well which was very nice. 

Despite being surrounded by family, it was a bit depressing not having the entire family together and so it truly didn’t feel like Christmas to me.  But at least Mason had a very good time, although I can start to see how much he is really missing having his baby brother at home and a bit more of a normal situation.  I think he would gladly give up sleeping with mommy and daddy on our alternate nights just to have Cutler at home.  However, Mason was very pleased with his gifts including some roller skates which he is determined to skate outside with just like his good friend Avery.  No matter how hard I try to get him to practice inside on the carpet, where the falls are a bit easier, he constantly insists he is ready.  So I did take him out and I am surprised his elbow isn’t out of socket with all of the falls and catches by me.

Cutler also received some presents that Melanie brought to the hospital for him to unwrap.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to see how much he enjoyed the sound of the paper, I can attest to his love for the toys as he is still playing very hard whenever he is feeling good.  Here are a few of the photos…

Now on to the current update for Cutler.  First of all, I apologize for taking a few days off, but every now and then we need to enjoy the holidays as well.  🙂  Cutler is still doing fairly well and the doctors are very pleased with his progress.  He is completely off pain meds and steroids as well as one antibiotic.  Unfortunately it appears that he is experiencing some pain and his having trouble sleeping through the night…at least as of last night he was.  He is also sneezing and coughing a lot, which I believe is still a bit of mucisitis residing that was successfully masked by the steroids.  Today he even had one of his vomit/spit up moments, which the nurse believes was clotting left over from the major mucisitis. 

We are hoping that the pain is a sign of the bone marrow starting to grow as they often see pain from the patients prior to the white cells returning, which the doctors think should happen within the next five days.  After the great increase of platelets a few days ago, it did drop down to 7K today and so he had another transfusion, so hopefully we will see another big increase tomorrow.  Dr. Weinthal did say that he expects to do transplants twice a week until the marrow is fully grafted and grown, so this is not a concern right now.

Cutler is still not eating, or for that matter even showing any interest in the bottle aside from using it as a toy.  In fact, when the nipple is put close to his mouth he has a gag reaction where he starts salivating and spitting almost immediately.  Dr. Weinthal did say that it should all change once the white cells are back up. 

So, to summarize at a high level, we are simply waiting for the white cells to come back.  This is a long waiting game and perhaps we were premature with our optimism a few days ago but I still believe we are progressing along nicely.  Most of the nurses have even commented that his behavior is ahead of schedule for what they see in most babies so it is refreshing to hear this, but again it is just a waiting game and patience is the key here.  We do not want to rush nature.

Below are a few more pictures from Christmas.  And the photo of Melanie and I in front of the tree, is from church.  We couldn’t fit a tree like that in our house without cutting a hole in the ceiling.

This picture is of Mason and his Zhu Zhu hamster.  Apparently they are big item to find this year that only Melanie knew was a big item as she stumbled upon it at the store.  Mason’s reaction was classic, in that he apparently missed the commercials on it and just kind of looked at it and moved on until we made him pose for a picture, but he has played with it quite a bit since.

Merry Christmas everyone!