One Tiny Transplant, One Giant Leap Toward Healing.2513
💛 Cylus’ Cell Day — A New Beginning for a Brave Little Warrior 💛
The day began quietly, almost tenderly.
The sky was soft and pale, and for the first time in weeks, the air around the hospital felt less heavy.
It wasn’t just another appointment, another needle, another scan — this day had a name, one filled with meaning and hope.
Cell Day.
For most people, those two words mean very little.
But for families living in the world of childhood cancer, Cell Day is monumental.
It marks the moment a new kind of healing begins — the moment when life gets another chance.
And today, it was Cylus’ turn.
🌿 A Small Boy, a Huge Fight
It’s been nearly two weeks since Cylus finished radiation.
Two long, exhausting weeks of waiting, monitoring, and praying.
But this morning, he was ready — not for another round of chemo, but for something far more hopeful: his first bone marrow transplant.
Unlike many transplants that require a long hospital stay and high-dose chemotherapy, this one was done
That alone felt like a miracle.
The cells being infused weren’t from a donor.
They were his own — the ones carefully collected months ago, back in April, when hope was still something fragile and far away.
Those tiny cells had been frozen, preserved, and now, they were coming home — cancer-free, ready to rebuild what radiation had broken.
“Radiation hits the bone marrow hard,” his mom explained.
“It stops his body from producing its own cells. That’s why a transplant is needed — to restart, to renew, to give him a clean slate.”
💉 The Science Behind the Miracle
When a child like Cylus undergoes radiation, their bone marrow — the very core of their immune system — is often damaged.
Without healthy marrow, their bodies can’t make new blood cells, can’t fight infection, can’t recover.
That’s why transplant day is so emotional.
It’s both scientific and sacred — a reunion between body and healing.
Doctors monitored every moment, every vial, every number.
And to everyone’s relief,
Even after radiation, his counts looked strong.
For children with severe bone marrow disease, this stage is often brutal — many need constant blood transfusions just to stay stable.
But Cylus? Somehow, his little body was fighting back.
The team shared something remarkable: his bone marrow results showed 0% disease on the right side and less than 1% on the left.
Just weeks ago, it had been 80% diseased on the left, 5% on the right.
That kind of turnaround is rare.
It doesn’t happen by luck.
It happens through miracles — medical, spiritual, and everything in between.
“It’s possible his bone marrow has little to no disease left,” his doctor said gently.
And for the first time in a long time, the word possible didn’t sound scary. It sounded like hope.
🌈 The Mystery of VIP — A Complication with a Hidden Blessing
Over the past few weeks, Cylus had been facing another painful challenge — one that no medication seemed to fix.
Severe, uncontrollable diarrhea.
He had lost weight. His energy dipped. His little frame seemed almost too fragile to hold all the strength inside him.
At first, doctors tested everything — bacteria, viruses, side effects from treatment — but nothing explained it.
Until they found it: VIP syndrome.
VIP stands for Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide, a rare condition in neuroblastoma where tumors secrete a specific protein that causes this extreme reaction in the body.
Most parents would hear that diagnosis and feel crushed.
Another complication. Another thing to fear.
But in Cylus’ case, it was the opposite.
VIP syndrome typically appears in maturing tumors — ones that are dying.
And in high-risk neuroblastoma, that’s almost unheard of.
So while it made daily life harder, it also meant something extraordinary was happening inside him.
The tumors weren’t growing — they were changing.
They were breaking down.
They were surrendering.
His doctors called it “encouraging and positive.”
His mom called it “a miracle in progress.”
🌼 Little Steps, Big Victories
The weeks since radiation had been filled with uncertainty, but also with the sweetest glimpses of progress.
Cylus began to stand on his own again.
He started walking short distances without help — just a few steps at first, but they were steps that made his mom cry.
He was gaining weight slowly, holding steady in his labs, and his eyes had that spark again — that stubborn, shining will to live.
And then came today — Cell Day — the milestone every cancer family dreams of reaching.
There were no balloons, no cheering crowds.
Just a quiet room, a few nurses, and a bag of cells that looked almost ordinary — until you remembered what they meant.
As the infusion began, his mom held his hand and whispered, “We made it here, baby. You did it.”
The smell of stem cells filled the air — strange and familiar all at once.
“They smell like creamed corn,” she joked, wrinkling her nose. “It’s weird, but honestly, I’ve seen and smelled worse.”
For her, the scent wasn’t unpleasant.
It was symbolic.
It meant her son had lived long enough to reach this moment — to receive back what cancer tried to take away.
💛 A Mother’s Prayer of Gratitude
When it was over, Cylus was tired but peaceful.
He rested in her arms, his tiny body wrapped in blankets, his heart beating steady beneath her hand.
She couldn’t stop smiling.
“We did it,” she whispered.
“We made it to transplant.”
It wasn’t the end of the journey — far from it.
There would still be long days ahead, more scans, more waiting, more prayers whispered into the quiet.
But today wasn’t about what came next.
Today was about survival.
Because every milestone, no matter how small, matters when your child is fighting cancer.
Every drop of hope, every sign of progress, every moment of laughter between treatments — it all adds up to something sacred.
As she tucked him into bed that night, she prayed again — not just for healing, but for strength, for comfort, for more days like this one.
Days filled with gratitude.
Days filled with mercy.
Days where science meets faith and love keeps carrying them forward.
“Happy Cell Day, Cy,” she whispered with a soft smile.
“You continue to amaze me and everyone around you.”
And somewhere in the quiet, between beeps of machines and the hum of new life beginning, a miracle was already unfolding — one cell at a time. 💛
The Endless Loop — A Mother’s Faith in Her Son’s Fight.2539
💛 Camilo — The Endless Loop, and the Boy Who Still Holds On 💛
“Groundhog Day.”
That’s what today feels like.
Same questions.
Same symptoms.
Same heartbreak playing on repeat — just dressed in a slightly different shade of exhaustion.
It’s as if time has stopped inside these hospital walls, and all that moves is the steady drip of IV fluid into my son’s fragile veins.
Yesterday, it started again.
The vomiting. The diarrhea.
The kind that leaves you holding your breath, praying it slows before the next wave hits.
By evening, there was blood in his stool.
That word — blood — never gets easier to hear. It cuts through everything, even after all these months of battles, tests, and whispered reassurances.
The team came quickly, calm but concerned. They think it’s probably colitis again — his poor gut, inflamed from months of antibiotics and endless treatments.
We’ve seen this before.
Too many times.
Still, they ordered more labs, an X-ray, and stool tests — making sure there’s no infection hiding beneath the surface.
We can’t afford to assume anything, not when every new symptom could be another storm waiting to break.
This morning, the bleeding seems to have slowed.
Maybe because they’ve stopped all his feeds, giving his digestive system a break.
Maybe because they paused the blood thinner he takes for the PICC-line clot — a medication meant to keep him safe but now turned into another tightrope we have to walk.
It’s all a balancing act.
One wrong step, and everything can tip over.
Camilo is tired — the kind of tired that sits deep in the bones.
His skin looks pale, his eyes half-closed even when he’s awake.
He’s drained, worn down to the edge of what a body should have to endure.
And yet, he doesn’t complain.
He just lies there, silent, watching the light flicker on the ceiling as nurses come and go.
General Surgery came by today. They’re being consulted to see if we can finally switch antibiotics — the one thing he needs, but that’s destroying his gut in return.
GI stopped in too, confirming once again what we already know in our hearts:
It’s the medication.
It’s always the medication.
Yesterday, they replaced his G-tube and checked the placement, making sure there were no leaks or blockages adding to his pain. Everything looked fine.
Everything looks fine — except for him.
He was supposed to have an endoscopy tomorrow.
It’s been on the schedule for days.
But now they have to wait.
They can’t risk doing it while an infection is still a possibility — it could change the results, or worse, make things even harder for him.
So we wait.
We sit in the limbo that has become our normal, caught between “too soon” and “not yet.”
And while we wait, I write.
Because that’s what I do when I feel helpless — I write it out, line by line, as if words could somehow hold back the tide.
As I type these words, I feel like a broken record.
We’ve been here before.
Not even two weeks ago, we were in this same place — IVs beeping, test results pending, the same hollow ache in my chest.
Sometimes I wonder how many more loops we’ll have to go through before we find a way out.
But then I remember: we always find a way out.
It might take days, or weeks, or endless nights of whispered prayers — but somehow, Camilo always finds his way back to us.
He starts eating again.
He starts smiling again.
He starts laughing at the little things, like the sound of his nurse’s squeaky shoes or the stuffed penguin that somehow ended up wearing his hospital bracelet.
It’s the cycle we’ve come to know:
Break. Heal. Break again. Heal again.
Each time a little slower, a little harder — but still, he heals.
Yesterday, I took a picture that shattered my heart.
Camilo was sitting quietly in his chair, just a few steps away from the bathroom.
He wanted to stay close so he wouldn’t have to rush every time his stomach turned.
He sat there, his little shoulders slumped, IV lines snaking from his arms, his face pale and still.
It was such a simple image — but it said everything.
It said, “I’m tired.”
It said, “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
It said, “I’m fighting, Mom, but I’m so tired of fighting.”
And I felt my heart crack in two.
Because as a mother, there’s nothing more unbearable than watching your child hurt — not once, not twice, but over and over again.
You can hold them, you can whisper comfort, you can stay up all night by their side — but you can’t stop the pain.
You can’t take it for them.
And that’s the cruelest part.
Still, even in the quiet of this morning, I can feel that familiar whisper deep inside:
This too shall pass.
We’ve been here before, and we’ve made it through.
We will make it through again.
The cycle may feel endless — a Groundhog Day of pain, tests, and waiting — but every storm eventually breaks.
And when it does, Camilo will breathe easier, eat better, laugh again.
He’ll take another small step forward.
And I’ll be right beside him, matching every breath, every heartbeat, every prayer.
Tonight, when the hospital lights dim and the hallways grow still, I’ll hold his hand and remind him — and myself — that healing doesn’t always come fast or easy.
Sometimes it comes in whispers, in tiny victories we almost miss:
a calmer night, a quieter stomach, a single meal kept down.
Those are the miracles we live for now.
And until the next sunrise, I’ll keep believing in them.
Because that’s what hope looks like in this life — fragile, persistent, and endlessly brave.
💛 Praying for quick healing. Praying for strength. Praying for peace for my sweet boy. 💛
