That’s what this post is about.

But first, a quick paragraph of update on the medical front.  Since the last update, things remain incredibly complicated.  Last week Logan received the Daratumumab treatment aimed at restoring his bone marrow production.  And starting on Saturday, he has been getting daily transfusions of granulocytes, or white blood cells, which will hopefully provide him with temporary immune cells until his own immune system returns.  While both of these new treatments carry the risk of sudden and severe reactions or side effects, so far Logan has done really well with them. He actually has been in good spirits all around.  I think that in addition to providing an immunity boost, the granulocyte transfusions also help to perk him up and negate some of the feeling of moroseness that sets in when blood counts are low.  But we have yet to see any major breakthroughs with his own bone marrow stimulation. He also continues to fight a very stubborn candida fungal infection.  He gets blood cultures drawn everyday and they presume the candida has cleared once there are three days of negative results.  But we’ve yet to get there.  Just today, we learned that the culture drawn on May 26 returned positive (it takes a few days for the cultures to grow in the petri dish that they test, so there is a delay in finding out the results).  Because of the infection, Logan has been without a central access line for over a week now.  That means we’ve been trying to manage all of his medications, nutrition and blood product transfusions through IV access.  Its difficult and frustrating.  While Logan was getting nutrition through his G-tube last week, he developed a GI bleed and we held feeds while that was ongoing.  It was actually very distressing the amount of blood he was losing with those GI symptoms, and it was also hard not to know the cause.  That seems to have now let up for the time being and a CT-scan from Monday night didn’t show any major issues, so we’re hoping to slowly re-start his G-tube feeds tomorrow. 

That’s a brief snapshot of the medical highlights since the last post. But we thought we’d make the focus of this post a bit different, toward something that’s been on our minds a lot this week.   And those are the acts of extraordinary kindness of so many that have accompanied this terrible nightmare.  

Any dedicated blog follower must know by now that a few days ago Logan recorded a video asking if any mascots can send him messages or videos that Becca posted to her Instagram account.  The response has been so touching.  Mascots all over the country (and beyond) have sent zany videos and words of love and encouragement.  The truth is that those videos have boosted Logan’s mood more than the mascot senders can ever imagine, and in the midst of a more difficult time than is also imaginable.  And the momentum only grows.  But beyond the esteemed global mascot community, so many others have sent kind words and pleas of hope and encouragement for Logan.  In the middle of the night at the hospital I’ve stayed up reading the thousands of comments from people all over praying for Logan’s recovery.  Here’s a few excerpts:  “you are such a beautiful boy and an inspiration to me,” “you are my hero,” “I watch you everyday for inspo,”  “I see you Logan. People you have not even met Love you.  We also see your mom and ask that your entire family be wrapped up in a huge cloud of pink light and love and protection. We also ask for a pure white light of peace and wisdom shine on you,” “special young man,” “hey handsome,” “What a little legend you are,” along with so so many other messages from people all over the world praying for Logan’s quick recovery and cajoling their local mascots to step up to support him!  There are a lot of very kind people in this world.

And here’s another illustration of that.  To help Logan fight his infections while he has no natural immunity, the doctors ordered the rather unique and extraordinary measure of doing daily granulocyte, or white blood cell transfusions, with the hope that these donor immune cells will stand in for his own immune system in this difficult time until his bone marrow is restored.  The logistics are very complicated.  Unlike red blood cells or platelets, these blood cells cannot be stored and only last for about a day.  So they need to be donated then rushed over to the hospital to be transfused as quickly as possible.  That requires a suitably matched blood donor willing to volunteer every single day.  So far, Logan has gotten the granulocytes from a donor every day now.  I was thinking about this a lot on Monday.  It was a beautiful memorial day, truly.  One of those late spring/early summer days in New York that brings a smile to your face just standing outside.  I thought of Logan, who hasn’t been able to go outside in nearly three months now.  Then I thought of the donor from that day.  Some person that I don’t know.  Who doesn’t get paid to donate.  But took a call from the New York blood bank on that absolutely beautiful morning and agreed, rather than spend all day outside, to come in to the blood center for a couple hours to donate, to try to help someone they don’t know but who needs their immune cells so desperately.  That is kindness.  Thank you.