Checking in today was a bit more disappointing than I was expecting.  First of all, they did not give us a room that has a window so that Mason could look in on him on occasion as was originally discussed.  Then we discovered that there was no rocking chair!  That’s right, no rocking chair in a room for an eight month old.  I am sure it will be rectified tomorrow, but not a good way to start.  Especially with an overtired baby.

As you can see from the above video, Cutler was in a great mood the majority of the day.  Now that I think about it, he was a lot more active and talkative today than I had ever seen.  Unfortunately he was a lot more tired that I had ever seen and while I waited for relief this evening I discovered how difficult it really is to soothe a baby without being able to really sit down and rock them.  I just talked to Melanie and she was having the same troubles, but after an hour of nerve-racking crying he finally fell asleep in Melanie’s arms and is now sound asleep in bed.  The nurse for tonight has taken on the rocking chair as her mission for the evening.  We will see how it goes.  Until then I will just keep watching this video over and over each time I start to feel a bit down.

Below are a few pictures from throughout the day, including Aunt Pat’s last morning with the boys before heading to the airport.  Thank you Aunt Pat for spending so much time with us and we will see you soon.

And here are a few from the hospital…

Tonight is the eve before our life gets turned upside down one more time.  Although we have been through a lot and have a good idea of what to expect, the anticipation of what we are about to embark on is weighing very heavily on me.  Just the idea of taking such a healthy and happy baby boy as we have right now and bringing him back down to level zero all over again is causing great angst.  However, realizing this is the final step in our soon to be victory over leukemia, I know it is the right decision.  I am finding a tremendous amount of comfort in prayer and knowing that everyone else is out there praying for us as well.  We check back into the hospital tomorrow at 1pm and then chemo will start on Tuesday morning.  I will start updating the blog on a more frequent basis now that we are returning from “vacation”. 

As a side note, I have changed the layout again and found a way to allow you to subscriber so that you get an email whenever I post a new update.  Look on the right hand side.  It should be fairly simple to do.

Thank you again for all of the prayers that are helping comfort us during our up and down times.  It really is amazing to know how many people out there are thinking about and praying for Cutler on a daily basis.

You can’t hear it very well, but yesterday morning when the theme song for college gameday started on the TV, this was Cutler’s reaction.  The only thing missing is his Vols jersey.

So we finally got some photos of Aunt Becky with the boys from her visit developed and ready for posting.  Sorry for the delay, but it takes forever to finish a roll of film and then get to Walmart to drop it off and then back again to…  Remember those days?  The real delay was in getting Aunt Becky to get me the photos, but no need to point fingers.  Fortunately there are no photos of the dreaded vomiting on my fancy new shoes by her during our night out.  This is a family blog after all.

Aaron and I met with Dr. Goldman and Kelly, the Transplant Coordinator, to go over all of the consent forms, potential problems/infections pre and post-transplant, etc.  Very scary stuff, but we have faith that Cutler will get through these next couple of months with a complete cure of his AML.  We appreciate all of your prayers and comments on the blog.  A special thanks to Aunt Pat who heads home on Monday…she has been here since before Halloween!  My mom and Aaron’s mom will be here during the transplant and afterwards, providing us relief in the hospital and comfort knowing Mason is being allowed ice cream BEFORE dinner!  I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Grammy for spending today with Cutler, especially since no one but me, Aaron, Carol and Betty will be allowed to hold Cutler until he is released from the hospital (30-60 days).  Other family will be allowed to visit us in the family waiting room at the hospital with a peek at Cutler through the window in his door.  This will have to suffice until his release…

That’s it for now.  Continued prayers are appreciated as Cutler still has a long road ahead of him.  We (I should say, Aaron) will do our best to keep up the blog and post pictures.

Melanie

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.