Welcome back… welcome back… welcome back!

Thursday was super AWESOME!!

Although no one expected Xander to have a White Blood Cell (WBC) count so early… they're here!  Every nurse and every doctor that worked with Xander gave him a "woot" or a knuckle bump or BOTH! We are so excited! We are so thankful! The joy in my heart is overflowing and I really can't stop crying as I write to tell everyone the good news!

Xander, however, is still transfusion dependent. Today he needed platelets as his body is chewing them up very quickly. There are a couple of reasons for this, but at this point, it is par that he is getting transfusions daily and sometimes multiple times daily. We hope and pray that the cell lines continue to reconstitute. Normally, white blood cells come first, then hemoglobin (RBC), and finally platelets. Translated, this means that the next forward motion we expect to see is the WBC count continue to increase while hemoglobin begins to hold levels from day to day ultimately eliminating RBC transfusions altogether.

IT'S HAPPENING AND WE ARE SO THANKFUL.

When Emilie and I went to get Le Dog (best soup on planet), we saw a van decorated with an important message - voteforbre.com. Currently, Bre has 66,000 votes and as we understand, has the most votes going into the second phase of the contest. Bre is a really cool and happy child who gives the most awesome hugs. We met Bre at Oxford Hyperbaric Center where she treats for inflammation reduction and well being. At the Oxford Kids Foundation Gala, Bre sold hugs non-stop - she is filled with love energy you can feel when you hug her as well as see in in her eyes when you meet her. GO BRE GO!

As I was working on Xander to eat his soup (veggie chicken noodle), Gabe and his grandmother Debbie showed up. Gabe was looking a bit groggy and pale when he came in. Come to find out, he had just woken up from anesthesia having just undergone intrathecal delivery of chemo and spinal fluid sample. It wasn't long, however, before he and Xander were laughing, talking and playing. Gabe seemed to forget he had just been sedated! I let Gabe use my computer so he and Xander could play Minecraft together. Gabe really liked the desktop version of Minecraft as the Xbox version is not as comprehensive. Gabe liked the bats very much and thought is was "no-fair" that Xbox doesn't have them. Killing creepers was very enjoyable for Gabe so they played until 4pm when Debbie and Gabe had to leave.

The evening was relatively quiet. Xan decided that he wanted Fettuccine Alfredo with gluten free noodles from Argerios in Ann Arbor. I think that there are somewhere around a million fat grams and calories in each bite of the Alfredo sauce - it is sooooo yummy! As you can see, Xander thinks it is yummy, too. Xander ate an OMG portion as normally we split one order between the three of us.

Later in the evening, Xander, Emilie and I took a long walk in the arb. It was such a beautiful night - even at 10pm the temperture was around 65 degrees. Xander had to rest often and by 11pm, he wasn't feeling the greatest. There was no fever or troubleing symptom, just a general malaise and ill feeling.

When we got back to the room, I kept my end of the bribe bargain as I had agreed to play Minecraft with Xan. We played for only 20 minutes or so before he passed out.

Thank you everyone for you support. Keep your eye on Xander's Facebook page (facebook.com/xandersjourney) for updates throughout the day. For those not on Facebook, I will continue to fold the Facebook updates into the blog.

Peace and Love,

Aaron