This afternoon Cutler and I went to see the doctor and everything is looking great.  The bone marrow is completely clean and the current blood work looks great.  The doctor did mention that since there is a lone white cell in his spinal fluid that we will continue with chemo spinal taps every three months for a year after the transplant is safe.  He did say that any white cell count in the spinal fluid less than 5 is considered clean and that with the bone marrow looking so good he isn’t terribly concerned, but would like to error on the side of caution.

As for the transplant, we will be checking back into the hospital on Monday.  Tuesday we start the first day of chemo that will run for eight days followed by a day of rest and then on Thursday, December 3rd the stem cell infusion will be performed.  It’s funny, when we all started this I was expecting the transplant to be a big surgery, but as it turns out it is about a 30 minute infusion via the IV.  The stem cells know where to go and attach themselves to the bone and form bone marrow if they like the way things look.  Pretty amazing stuff.  Dr Goldman said that the shortest time anyone has required for going home is about 26 days, so there is a small chance that Cutler will be home in time to celebrate New Year’s with us, but we aren’t counting on it.  More than likely he should be home by mid January if all goes well.  It’s going to make for a tough Christmas, but it will be toughest on us.  Definitely something we can hold against Cutler as he gets older.

As for right now, Cutler is doing extremely well.  His cough is still around, but not nearly as persistent as before and his vomiting is reduced to spit ups which are pretty much due to the congestion.  The doctor did listen to the lungs and look in his ears and everything looks great so for now the congestion is limited to his nasal passages.   A huge sigh of relief.  I am happy to say, for Melanie’s sake, that Cutler slept through the night last night.  Unfortunately it wasn’t my turn to stay watch so Melanie got the full benefits before slipping away to Atlanta for a night.  We will see how tonight goes, my fingers are crossed.

Below is a video of Cutler from tonight in his favorite toy, the exesaucer.  He is so healthy and full of life.  Will cherish this time over the next week as it will probably be another two months before he will feel this good again.

Sunday is a day for rest, so no more apologies for the delay in updates, especially on the weekends.  It was a busy and fun weekend and a very good one to be spending time with the family.  Cutler is still avoiding infection, but does have a pretty bad cough and congestion.  He is still vomiting, but I think this might be due to the amount of mucus he is experiencing from his congestion.  So far it looks like it is just a bad cold as there has not been a fever.  Unfortunately he still isn’t sleeping through the night, which makes for some very tired parents.  Aside from the cough, he seems to be doing really well and based on the amount of slobber he should have another tooth or two coming in very soon.

Below are a few pictures from tonight including Mason’s fauxhawk.  He was quite proud…

The bond between the two brothers continues to amaze me.  Any time they are in the same room, Cutler can not take his eyes off of Mason and no matter how fussy he might be if Mason walks over and talks to him he is an instant smile.

Here he just wants a piece of Mason’s hair…

Couldn’t post pictures without one of Cutler’s smile…

And finally, Sponge Bob says Hi!

Granted it is against old folks, but Mason recently continued his undefeated streak in the great scooter race series.  This weekend he successfully blew Papa Herman away and with Nana quickly learned that you ain’t racin’ if you ain’t cheatin’.  Watch how he so keenly knew to push her towards the grass on two different occasions in order to hold her off.  Brings tears to my eyes every time I watch as I am overwhelmed with pride.  Now if he could just take that aggression to the soccer field.

Mason got a nice shiny new bicycle for Christmas and it only took 11 months before he finally started to ride it.  I was starting to fear that Santa wasted his money, but fortunately on Thursday Mason decided to give it a try largely in part due to his good friend Avery showing him how to do it.  Now we can’t keep him off of it and according to him it is the fastest bike in the neighborhood.  Up until tonight there were actually no falls, but he did take a bit of a fall earlier and you would have thought he broke his leg based on the tears, but five minutes later he was back at it.  Below is a video of his second ride on it.  I think in another couple of weeks we will have to get him jumping off some ramps.

…because they treat their employees incredibly well.  We just got news today that Pepsi, Melanie’s employer and insurance provider, has agreed to treat the transplant as in network at Medical City!  This is a huge amount of weight off our shoulders and so we are very happy.

On to the updates, the last two nights have been pretty rough with last night being the worst.  Cutler did manage to sleep until 3 am and then went back down pretty easily for another hour at which time his stomach decided it was time to vomit everything on to me.  By then he was pretty wired and so it was on to the swing for some gravity induced sleep, which worked.  However Mason felt like he was being left out so he promptly blessed me with his presence at 6:20…just as I was starting to fall back asleep.  Got to love kids.  Today has been much better as he has managed to keep everything down and appears to be back on schedule with both eating and sleeping habits so hopefully tonight will be a return to the old days.  Fortunately Melanie will be back, let’s hope the night away was enough rest to carry her through the night.

Today was what felt like a normal day for the first time in a very long time.  It was great to wake up to both boys being at the house.  Even better is that Cutler didn’t have his usual morning vomit.  We will see how tomorrow goes, but for now he seems to be doing a good job of keeping his food down.  Unfortunately, he hasn’t learned that he is supposed to sleep through the night when the nurses and techs aren’t there to wake you every few hours.  Jadira.  Last night he woke at 10:30 requiring more milk and again at 12:30 requiring a quick rocking and then again at 5:30.  Somehow I managed to sleep through all of this.  That won’t be the case tonight as Melanie has an early flight out in the morning and things are not looking good as he just woke up at 10:30 again requiring more milk.  Let’s hope he ignores the other two and sleeps through the night like he did in the old days.

Regardless of the lack of sleep, he was a bundle of joy the entire day in between naps.  I have also discovered that he is quite fond of himself, much like his mother.  Here is a video of him watching the last video I posted of him on the blog.

And finally some more scooter fun for Mason from the weekend.  This time, still in his underwear, he took on Aunt Becky.  Despite winning, it looks like his confidence got the best of him, but don’t worry no four-year olds were injured before, during, or after the shooting of this scene.

And home is where he is!  It’s been a terribly long day, but Cutler is finally home.  After a bit of a wait, Cutler had his spinal tap and bone marrow aspirate around 11:30 am and so far everything looks good to the eye.  His blood dropped a bit so we had to wait around to get another dose of antibiotics and a bag of refreshing blood.  Personally I think Kammie was just finding reasons to delay our departure as this will hopefully be our last day on the sixth floor.  Hopefully not because we don’t love the staff, but hopefully because it will mean the rest of the time will be at home or on the 12th floor, which is the transplant floor.  Still trying to work out a deal with the hospital and insurance, so not sure if it will be where we would like it to be or in Ft. Worth where Aetna would prefer it to be.  Hope to have more answers over the next day or two.  In the interim, we are going to be sure and enjoy our time at home as a big happy family.

Sorry for sitting it out for so long.  The time has really just flown by and it honestly felt like only a day or two since my last post, but then I just checked out the date and it has been quite a bit longer than that.  So here are some quick updates…

First of all, Cutler is doing great.  Aside from vomiting first thing after his first bottle of the day he is back to drinking milk and starting to eat solids again.  He is back to playing almost nonstop and is still flashing his infectious smile.  Amy.  His blood work continues to improve daily and he is scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy and another spinal tap tomorrow morning.  This is to validate that the blood results are correct and to be sure that he is still in remission.  Once those are complete, we should be taking him home for at least two weeks. 

As for the transplant, we still don’t have anything scheduled yet and are still trying to finalize where it will be done.  We believe the hospital has worked out some type of contract with Aetna, but not sure how much out-of-pocket it is going to cost us.  We are hoping that the hospital will work with us and potentially waive the additional cost to us to make this a win win situation.  A win for us in that we get to stay with our doctors and nurses that we completely trust and feel like are a part of our extended family.  A win for the hospital in that they can add another success to their stats and more importantly they can continue to spend time with the Fantastic Fricke’s and their support team.  If we do get to stay here, the thought is that we would start the week of Thanksgiving.  Would be nice to have Cutler at home for a big feast before the fun and games, but we can have many thanksgiving celebrations on any day we desire when this is all complete and behind us.

This weekend has been a fun blur as Aunt Becky flew into town on Friday and we have been running nonstop every since including a visit for Mason to see his favorite baby brother.  Once again, the light that comes on in Cutler’s eyes is amazing.  Unfortunately it wasn’t captured very well in the picture above.  However, Mason did let Cutler pull his hair without any water works.

As for Aunt Becky, Mason did dust her on the scooter just like he did to grandpa and he has also been very good about waking her first thing in the morning and letting me stay in bed.  The two of us also went to the Mavs game last night and had some good brother sister bonding time including me being able to explain to her that the five Michael Jackson dancers connected together by poles were actually just one guy and four dummies, thus the poles.  Then we had some good times spending some time at my favorite watering hole, the Gingerman.  Made this morning a bit tougher to wake up, but the bonding time was well worth it.  Plus she got to wear her fancy new shoes out on the town. 

She also got some great quality time with Cutler and once I find those pictures I will be sure to post after we get settled in at home.

This morning I was fortunate enough to wake to the Cutler of old.  His smile is back, his desire to play, his will to talk, everything is back.  It was such a good way to wake up and see him laying in bed with such a big smile on his face.  He has now gone over 24 hours without a fever and despite one vomiting incident last night he is otherwise keeping everything down and even starting to drink more.  Dr. Goldman said that we can bring him home on Monday and insurance willing, we will begin Cutler’s transplant at the end of the month.  We will likely have our loving healthy baby boy at home with us for over two weeks.

In what has now become a tradition, Halloween night consisted of me pulling the wagon (with cooler) behind Mason as we protect the streets of Rolling Ridge and Mason is paid generously with pieces of candy.  Last year it was Super Man and this year it is my new best friend, Iron Man.  It was, as usual, a great time walking the streets and having fun seeing all of the neighbors and just enjoying a good family time.  The only thing missing from the evening was having our special pumpkin in tow, but I am sure he will be more than ready next time around.  A special thanks to Aunt Pat for handing out candy and grandma and papa for watching Cutler.  The evening ended with Mason and I staying out too late at the Carley cul-de-sac watching the baseball and football games while Bill grilled up some brats and burgers.

Also, thanks to the Melberts, Markleys, Sumralls, Carleys, and the Gillum’s for helping us in our duties to keep the streets safe from creatures like the one in the picture below…

And one final thanks to Mike, Andrea, Bill, and Miles for making sure my cooler wasn’t emptied alone.  However judging on how I felt in the morning, they could have pulled a little bit more of their share.  🙂