Nothing new today, Cutler’s WBC is 800 again, although his ANC increased a bit.  Aaron had a bad night last night – Cutler was up for a number of hours just wanting to hang out and play.  3 a.m. is not a good time for your baby to be playful!  I hope I have better luck tonight 🙂  Aunt Ellen stopped by the hospital this evening and “played” with Cutler through the window of his door.  He was very excited and she just cried! 

Can’t let today go by without thanking Adam for coming over and changing the flat on my car so my mom could get down to the hospital and provide much needed relief to my extremely exhausted hubby.  Thanks Adam!

Also, we finalized the plans for my cousin’s daughter, Kobi, to come down from Wyoming and “nanny” Cutler when he is discharged from the hospital.  Kobi recently graduated from the University of Wyoming – Go Cowboys! – and has agreed to live with us for at least 6 months.  Hush, you’ll scare her away!  Seriously, this is a God thing as we need someone so we can focus on work, and she needs money!  We look forward to adding a new family member to our household.  Now, all we need is Cutler’s WBC to increase and for him to start eating…  I hope to report higher WBC counts tomorrow.

I woke up this morning to a happy and smiling baby!

The best news is his WBC is 800 and his ANC is 560!  Great progress overnight.  Will ask the doctor this morning what the WBC and ANC levels need to be, consistently, in order to go home.  We continue to offer Cutler bottles of formula or pedialyte in the hopes he starts to take one or the other…so far no luck.  Will try more baby food today, as he seems at least interested in eating that most days.

More thanks to my mom Betty and step-mom Barbara who come to the hospital to hang with Cutler!  I don’t know how families do this if they didn’t have someone to give them a break.  Aunt Pat comes back into rotation on Sunday, gone but not forgotten since before Thanksgiving, to allow Barbara to make  her trip to NY to visit her “other” grandson, Mikus.

First things first, Cutler’s WBC was 500 today, another increase of 100 from the previous day.  He ANC jumped to 400 from 200, so we are definitely making progress.  The ANC is a measure of his ability to fight off bacterial infection and I am sure the nurses are really watching this number rise as the sooner it gets up and stays up they can start to remove their masks.  Then we will really know what they look like.  🙂

Cutler had a surprise visitor this morning from his cancer twin, Lucas.  Lucas is doing so well that he was out and about cruising the halls of the transplant unit on a scooter.  They were able to see each other for the first time through the door and celebrated their unity by slapping on the glass.  It was really nice to see Cutler interact with another baby and can’t wait for him to be in the same room with some.

Lucas was doing so well, it was decided that the halls weren’t enough and so he was sent home today!  We are so happy for Lucas and his family as they have been in the hospital since July 10th, with no return home.  While both Cutler and Lucas have the same type of leukemia, Lucas has had a much tougher battle with other complications along the way and so they haven’t been able to bring him home like we have, so tonight is the first night in almost seven months that they will all be home together.  We wish them the best of luck and pray for their continued recovery and thank Lucas for setting the path for us to follow.  Hopefully we are only a few weeks behind them.

From another great weekend with Mason, was Cutler.

Mason is now playing in an indoor soccer league for ages three to five and his first two games showed incredible improvement from the outdoor season.  He was more involved in the game, hustled more, stopped falling down on purpose, etc.  So we started off our weekend on Saturday morning for Melanie to get to experience this for the first time.  Not sure what happened, but he completely reverted back to his old self, minus the falling part.  That has remained resolved thanks to the requirement of no falling in order to get a snack from the snack machines afterwards.  I think it might have to do with the girl on the other team that stood about 5’4″ and weighed close to 200 lbs, but Mason lost all desire to mix it up.  Regardless, he still had fun and that is what counts.  As I tell him after every game when he asks if he won…”Did you have fun?  That’s all you need to worry about.”  Mason’s quick response is…”Oh yeah, we won!”.

From there we had a great family day for the three of us tearing up the garage and taking down the Christmas decorations.  Mason was very helpful by grabbing the broom and helping push the dirt around in the garage before seeing his friends running around.  Next thing you know he was the responsibility of Miles, our neighbor.  Regardless, it was so nice to have Melanie there helping me with the chores and watching Mason playing across the street with the many different neighborhood kids.  I can not wait until Cutler is home and running around right behind Mason doing his best to keep up.

After not completing the garage reorg, Mason and I decided it was time to head to the Hobbs’ household for drinks.  Red wine for me and milk for Mason.  Mason had a blast playing with the Hobbs boys and not once was there a cry from upstairs as they all played together.  I must mention that there were no cries to be heard, because we were outside on the back patio watching football, but still no cries to be heard.

This morning started off a little rocky with a tired and cranky (milk hangover I think) Mason, but a quick trip to church resolved all.  After an inspirational message and Mason’s time in children’s church we were again ready to capture the world together.  It could also have to do with the constant threat that if he didn’t improve his attitude, he wouldn’t be going to Disney Rocking Live.  Of course we could never deny him that pleasure, so off we went to cap off a great weekend.  Here is a photo of my beautiful wife and son rocking it Disney style…

The only thing missing to make this a perfect weekend, is sleeping in his hospital crib, right next to me.  Cutler, your big brother is patiently waiting to push your limits when you get home.

Here is another attempt at the actual video of the kids singing, from the New Year’s Eve post of Cutler’s inspiring of song, rather than just the audio.  It’s odd that the video worked on my home computer, but not on this site.  So we will see if this format works.  If it does, blame the first snafu on Joe Hopkins.  If it doesn’t, blame the first and second snafus on Joe Hopkins.

I was just looking through some of the photos taken over the past few days and came across these two photos that are a perfect example of the danger of taking multiple pictures within milliseconds of each other.  🙂 

Cute

Notso

Before anyone starts calling CPS, I swear the pain meds are for his pain.

Good news first…white cell count was up to 400 this morning.

Bad news…none!  🙂

Cutler is still having the occasional pains that require pain meds, but in a sick way it is a good thing that he is experiencing the pain as the staff believes this is a sign of the new marrow starting to work and the white cells are further proof.  It isn’t that often that he needs it, but there are definitely times that it is required.

The doctors have stopped one of the antibiotics he has been on and as the cells continue to grow we will be stopping the celsep, which is one of two meds to help fight off GVHD (graft versus host disease).  Over the next several weeks is when the GVHD could start to hit.  As the wise old Dr. Goldman tells me, there is no GVHD without the G.  So now that the grafting appears to be working, we start moving into the GVHD territory.  Just another milestone that Cutler will work through in his continued battle over this nasty cancer.

Cutler is continuing to enjoy eating the different baby foods that we bring him, but still no interest in the bottle.  He even likes to drink fruit smoothies from the straw, but I have now been told that it isn’t a good idea so we will stick to baby food for now.  He also continues to play hard the majority of the day, but usually by the evening the picture below represents his favorite activity.

No pictures today, but I wanted to let everyone know that Cutler’s white blood cells (WBC) have been at 300 for the last two days, PRAISE GOD.  We fully expect them to gradually increase.  Cutler continues to eat a little baby food each day; he even had a few tastes of my fruit smoothie today!  As his WBC increase, the doctors will taper back the TPN (steak & potatoes in a bag) and Cutler should have the desire to eat more fully.  Right now, he isn’t hungry, but takes in the food because we shove the spoon in his mouth!  As we’ve said before, as Cutler’s WBC increase, he needs to be able to get all nutrition through food/bottles and take meds orally before he can go home.  Cutler continues to have mostly good days where he plays hard and naps in someone’s arms.  Here’s to more good news in the coming days!  Happy New Year!

Here is a video just sent to us from my family in Illinois.  Cutler’s cousins got together and sang this song for him that was originally sang to him over the phone on Christmas Eve.

Thank you Jordan, Lindsey, Conrad, Hunter, and Caroline!  We love and miss you all!

After a few nights home with a cold, I am back at the hospital with Cutler.  Today was a very good day.  It started off with Cutler EATING some baby food for Aaron!!  This is huge, as we hope it is an indicator that his WBC should be increasing beyond the current 200!  He truly is acting as if he’s feeling very good.  He even ate applesauce for me this evening…however, he did spit up some mucus not too long after.  But hey, he’s at least interested in eating, which we’re told is half the battle.

We wish all  of you a safe NYE and an even better 2010!  We KNOW that 2010 will be an awesome year for Team Fricke, with Cutler coming home soon, cured of cancer and no permanent physical or developmental issues.  God continues to bless us with wonderful family and friends…we couldn’t have gotten this far in our journey without you!  Happy New Year!