While things have not been easy of late, there have been some very good things that have occurred recently. I think I'll take this time to go over a few of these.
First, and probably most significant, Cole's day 29 bone marrow came back with 0% blasts! We are waiting on the Minimal Residual Disease, which is much more sensitive than the other tests for the final word (and praying for less than 0.1% blasts from that), but by the old definitions, before they had all the fancy tests, Cole is almost in remission. We're waiting on his counts (or good cells) to come back up. Remission means that his bone marrow is not producing cancer cells and is producing good cells. It's not a "cure", it just means that the cancer is under control.
Another good thing that has happened recently is that we have finished with induction, stopped the steroids, and our little boy is coming back! Even while we've been in the hospital, Cole has started to rebound from the zombie he had become while in induction, due in large part to the steroids. He's laughing and smiling again, making jokes, and talking! He's talking almost non-stop again, which is much more like him. He's still eating a lot, but his appetite is obviously decreasing and his puffiness is going away before our eyes. It's breathtaking to get your child back in what is almost the blink of an eye, and I can't wait for him to make a full comeback.
Lastly, Dalynn and I are starting to distribute the load of Cole's treatment better. For instance, only one of us (me, tonight) is staying at the hospital with Cole at night. The other is able to go home, enjoy Logan and get some sleep. We're also planning on trying to solo the clinic, though that will most likely be Dalynn to begin with, as I try and get back to a more normal work routine.
Distributing the load may sound trivial, but it's very important. It means that we're less prone to burn-out and that we can more easily manage our daily lives, since less of our daily lives are being consumed by cancer.
All in all, even though we're in the hospital again, things are "looking up", as Gary would say.
