Category Archives: Cutler

All things Cutler

Footloose And Cancer Free

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This is a day late, but it can never be too late for good news.  Yesterday was Cutler’s last semi-annual check up with the oncologist and all test return clear.  We now move to an annual visit that will continue into his 20’s.  The best part of yesterday is that it was the 5th anniversary of his bone marrow transplant and after five years of clear tests the doctors consider him to be “cured”.  They will never say that there is zero percent change of it returning, but after five years they feel it’s as close to zero as possible.  As we work through the stresses of Melanie’s new job, the buying of a new house, selling of the old house, and the move to St. Louis it was awesome and refreshing to get some news like this to help put everything into perspective.

Below are a couple pictures from our visit.  One is of the standard picture with his bear.  One of these days I will take the time to track down all of the bear photos so we can see how much he has grown.  The best bear picture will be of him in his late teens laying down for a hug.  The next picture of him standing next to the glass railing with the phrase I am a Survivor on it that I have never noticed until yesterday as we were waiting on the elevator.  And finally is a celebration ussie.

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It’s Moving Time…almost

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A lot of people have learned already, but now it is official.  Melanie has taken a new job with Frito Lay that is having us move back to St. Louis.  We have mixed emotions about the move as we will miss our great friends and family here in Dallas, but this is a great opportunity for Melanie and I am really looking forward to spending some time around my family as I have lived in the area for only a year since I graduated from college so many years ago.  The boys feel the same way, but are very excited to be able to see their cousins more often.  We don’t know the date yet as we have to sell our house here and find one in St. Louis, but as it approaches I will be sure to share.

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It’s Hockey Time!

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In honor of the start of the Blues and Stars regular season I thought I would share some videos of the boys’ latest hockey endeavors.

Cutler has finally started pre hockey, which is basically just skating lessons with the equipment on and a stick.  He clearly needs to work on using his right foot.

Mason has moved away from goalie this year and is skating out, in his video he is taking a penalty shot with the slow deliberate approach mastered by Oshie.  Here’s to hoping he develops the shot to go with it.  Sadly I cut the video off before he dropped to the knee and used his stick as a rifle as part of his sniper celebration.

 

Back To School

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Cutler started kindergarten today and Mason started 3rd grade.  Here are the obligatory photos including one that his teacher took. 

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It’s Just Youth Baseball

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Yesterday Mason’s baseball team took a heart breaking loss after being up 11-0 that went to the last out of the game to end the season.  It quickly went from a blowout to a pretty tense game in just three innings.  We had it won and then everyone just fell apart.  We should have won the game.  In my few years of coaching, I don’t recall ever taking a loss as hard as this one.  When talking to the boys I could feel myself nearing a tear, very odd for me when it comes to youth baseball as I usually keep it all in the proper perspective, but I couldn’t help but feel like I let the parents down.  How sad is that, I was more concerned about how I let the parents down and not the kids?  Sure, the kids were upset, but five minutes after the game was over I saw at least three of them running the bases laughing away.  On the ride home all I could think about was the many things I might have done different to have won the game.  I was really beating myself up for a lot of things, then Cutler got home and he was all over me to play video games with him.  It was then that I snapped back to reality and realized that it was just youth baseball.  It wasn’t a game of survival like Cutler went through when he was six months old.  There were no scholarships on the line, no pro scouts searching for the next great 8 year old, it was just youth baseball.  It wasn’t like every six months when we worry about if the leukemia has returned and Cutler must start the fight over again.  It was just youth baseball.  For now on, when I start to feel down about something like this again, I am going to grab Cutler and sit down for a video game.

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Back On The Small Screen

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It’s been awhile, but Cutler and I got the call to head back to TV land and use his cute looks and charm to help spread the word of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  This time we filmed a show, “Plugged In To DFW”, that will air locally on CBS at 6:30 am on Saturday morning.  The entire 30 minutes will be dedicated to the LLS and their current effort to help end AML called “Fight AML”.  As a reminder, this is what Cutler had at 6 months old, which is extremely rare for infants.  AML has a high frequency for coming back and so it is even more difficult to combat.  We have been very blessed to have a miracle fighter for a child.  Unfortunately others aren’t as fortunate and so I am honored to help the LLS spread the word any chance we get and this time the host was awesome enough to discuss with Cutler and get some good responses from him(good for a freshly turned five year old that is).  For those local to the Dallas area, I would encourage you to record and watch or just wake up early and watch and to help spread the word.  There was some very good information discussed about the LLS and AML in general.  CBS is going to send me a copy of the show next week, when I get it I will be sure to share.  A special thanks to our good friend Jennifer Flaherty for helping getting the LLS this opportunity at her awesome station.

 

Safe Again

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It’s been awhile since our neighborhood has been patrolled by Super Cutler, but today he decided it was time to suit up and get back to work.

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He even had time to play a little baseball with me.

 

 

 

 

All Clear

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Cutler did extremely well with the blood draw, better than a lot of friends my age would do, and his blood came back clean.  So just another six months until his five year anniversary of his transplant and then when that is all clear we go to annual check ups and the doctors allow us to relax and breathe a bit more.  It will also be one less day that he could get away with anything with us.  And as always, here is his picture with the bear and now he is so big he can finally stand up with him.  Thank you for your continued prayers.

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