Day 365--HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

Today marks one year from Torger's transplant! Wow, it's gone fast. It's hard to believe that a year ago we were holed up in his room on the 11th floor of University Hospital wondering if any of it would work. So far so good! This next year will be the real test...if he can get through two years without serious problems, he'll be well on his way to a normal life.

In the last week, he took one big step that's been a long time coming. He got his tubes out! This is my opportunity to offer my photo essay of Torger and his catheter prior to removal. This first photo shows how much he enjoyed having three tubes hanging out of a hole in his chest for a year. As you can see, the lines are rather long, so he had to figure out how to keep them appropriately tucked in to various items of clothing, and rolling over on them in his sleep would wake him up constantly in the night.

This second photo demonstrates that he came to terms with this relatively minor aggravation in his own way. It gave the docs and nurses a painless way to draw all the blood they needed to suck out of his body this past year rather than poking him with needles. And it gave me an evening task since I had to clean and flush each line every night. What it doesn't show is how fragile and irritated the skin is around the catheter site...it was getting really tired of having tape on it for a year.

This third and final picture shows where the tube went in to his chest and then where it connected up through the artery. That isn't a pronounced vein in his neck...that's the catheter! You don't really notice it, and then once you do, you can't look at anything else! We won't be missing that.

But we made our last trip to Interventional Radiology at University Hospital and he had it removed. It held up well...it exploded and had to be patched together twice, but never got infected and never needed to be replaced. I'd post an "after" photo, but it pretty much just looks like a bandage until the hole heals over. Suffice it to say that Torger feels much more free and normal now that it's gone. Arrivederci, baby!

And as you can see from these photos, he looks great. He's put weight back on and has his beard back. He went to the dentist today for a much-needed cleaning (apparently, dry mouth is really hard on teeth), and the hygienist said his gums look better than they ever have before thanks to all the antibacterials he's taking. So that's a plus.

And with that, I'm going to sign off so we can go celebrate one amazing year of life together!