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."