9/25/24 - Today Atticus's labs showed his ANC (absolute neutrophil count) was over 500!  That's up from his initial first sign of new cells yesterday of 150 by over 4x AND he reached his minimum for discharge in ONE DAY!!!!  This is all AMAZING progress.. Those HCT went to work and now they are making a new immune system for him in overtime... WHICH HE NEEDS!!!!!  Because his mouth and throat are still a HOT MESS.

He still feels awful, but everywhere are tiny little signs that the tides have turned and he's headed in the right direction.  He has a slight voice again.  He's suctioning his mouth once an hour or so, not every 3 minutes. He can swallow SOME saliva. He wanted to walk the halls today for a bit. He's awake for several hours at a time instead of constantly falling in and out of consciousness.  He's a little bit cranky sometimes. (This seems bad, but trust me... if you felt like him, you'd be cranky too and it was SCARIER that couple of days when he felt SOOO bad that he couldn't even muster the energy to be cranky!)

The whole care team is so excited!  They believe the healing will happen FAST now.  He may be able to drink water tomorrow and he may off IV nutrition tomorrow or the next day.  By Friday they hope he may be able to drink protein drinks again and swallow pills.  They're already talking about when he might expect to come home!!!!  

His face is still swollen, but it looks quite a bit better from yesterday. 

It feels like a huge weight off my shoulders to see a light at the end of the tunnel!