Day 144--Suppressed No More!!

We still can't quite believe it, but Dr. Tse called Thursday night and said Torger could stop his immunosuppressants entirely this weekend. This is much earlier than we expected, but we're thrilled! The immunosuppressants are the last real barrier to him getting a mostly normal life back. Without them, he can eat a salad, pet a dog, take out the trash, and be in the same car with a child. We can even turn our heat back on...although we've kind of gotten used to living without it (and I'm almost looking forward to getting our gas bill this month). This is just one more reminder of how incredibly lucky we've been every step of the way. We'll have to be careful for the next two years; as Dr. Tse has said, the two big risks we face now are infection and return of the disease. One we can control a little bit, and the other we can't control at all. The infection risk is dramatically reduced once Torger's off the immunosuppressants, but we will still need to monitor his health closely, particularly until he hits the two-year mark. When he hits the four-year mark, they pretty much consider him out of danger. We'll still have some limitations...no sushi ever (fortunately, Torger doesn't like to eat fish, raw or cooked), and no rare hamburger again, ever. They don't want us to travel very far from the hospital during the next two years just in case something happens. But those are all things we can live with. The key word here is "live."

Day 141--I'm a Blog Slacker

I haven't done a good job of keeping up with the blog since we've been home, mostly because we're still trying to get our lives into some sort of rhythm and routine. We've both come to appreciate how much easier it was to manage in the hotel because our lives were so simple and contained. If we ran out of oranges or toilet paper, we just had to run down to the front desk! Of course, that also meant completely ignoring the big part of our lives that existed outside our hotel bubble. We pretty much just kept our fingers crossed that our house would still be standing when we got home after four months. (It was.) There's just a lot more involved in life at home, from keeping up with the house and appointments to actually getting dressed for work every day. It's great to be home, and we have NO complaints. But it's tricky trying to re-establish a routine.

On the plus side, Dr. Tse called last week and said Torger only needs to go back to Denver for appointments once a month now...his labwork is looking great and his platelet count is on the rise. He also reduced his immunosuppressant levels again and indicated Torger might be off them completely by the end of March! We're still going in for labwork twice a week at the hospital here in Fort Collins, and we've been seeing the oncologist here in town, Dr. Romero, every other week. But it's just fantastic not to have to drive to Denver as much as we expected we would.

Torger talked with his dad this weekend about possibly working through the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help mentor other patients who are preparing for a transplant, and we talked a little bit with Dr. Romero about it today. Torger was concerned that he's been so lucky all along the way, it might just depress other patients, but Dr. Romero said it's really important for people with leukemia and other serious cancers to hear positive news and have a reason for hope. While there's a significant marketing and fund-raising push behind breast cancer, we don't frequently hear the same kinds of success stories and rallying cries for other types of cancer. When Torger was diagnosed, I still thought of leukemia as a disease that affected mostly children...I knew almost nothing about it. We've both gained a lot of strength from friends who have dealt with cancer with grace and beaten the odds, even for awhile. So we're going to talk about this some more and see if there's a way Torger can help.