today.

Today was a good day, a cherry on top day, an icing on the cake day…  Today we added stinky shoes to our make-believe soup.  Today we said "thank you" for things big and small to everyone we came in contact with including all of the cleaning staff.  Today we drummed to the beat of silly songs.  Today we shot imaginary hoops in the hallway with the nurses and cheered loudly. Today with butter in the trunk we sat excitedly in a red fisher price car waiting for Daddy.  Today we labelled sprinkles on top of our ice-cream sundae as sesame street characters. Today we pretended not to cringe at the rodents brought to the Ronald McDonald house to visit the children (okay that one was just me).  Today we watched a video of the two of us giggling and giggled just as hard.  Today we karate chopped our Monkeys right off of the bed.  Today followed many good days in the last week.  Our boy continues to push through any adversity that stands in his way.  We are amazed by his courage and in awe of his spirit.

Kiah's cell count is climbing already which is the reason he's feeling so much better. His counts started to come in on day twelve which is on the early side considering that typically engraftment takes place between day ten and day forty-five (and on the later end for cord blood over bone marrow).  The doctors are hopeful but also preparing us for the possibility that these could be Kiah's own cells coming back and the transplant could have failed.  On Monday they took an extra blood sample which will determine how much of the cells in his body are the old cells and how much are the new.  This test will take a week or two before we receive the results. So now we wait, once again.

In the meantime though we are beginning to get ready for discharge.  Starting with an afternoon pass today.  Kiah was able to leave the hospital to come to the Ronald McDonald house for a few hours and soon we'll be staying there all together as a family.  He will then be an outpatient and return to the hospital for a few hours a few days a week.  Though we will be unable to return home to Edmonton until after the one hundred day mark, this transition is a great first step for us.  And even though we are not out of the woods we are comforted by our sweet boys resilience.

Today was a very good day, and tomorrow will be more of the same.

Ps. On the hair front, we shaved those wispy strands and now completely bald, Kiah is quite proud to share the same haircut with "Daddy and Giko (gido) and Uncle Sean and Kiah too" (and the other children on the oncology unit).