Day 131--Waiting for the Sun

It feels great to be back in our own home and settling back in to a more normal routine. We were able to get things cleaned up so we could move in last Monday night, and I went back to work at the office on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we had our first return visit with Dr. Romero, a Fort Collins oncologist who monitors Torger's progress so we don't have to go to Denver every week. And on Friday, we went back to Poudre Valley Hospital--just half a mile from our house--to start up Torger's regular labwork there, again sparing us the Denver drive. The nurses in the lab seemed really happy to see Torger alive and doing so well, looking much stronger than he did when they last saw him in September.

Our big challenge for the next couple of months will be keeping warm. We decided not to use our heater while Torger's still on immunosuppressants because the furnace tends to circulate dust in the air. Dust=Danger. So instead, we bought some small radiant heaters, with no fans, that we're positioning strategically around the house to try and keep the temperature tolerable. It's been OK on sunny, warmer days, but if the thermometer falls below freezing, we'll probably have to go back to the hotel for a night. Still, after a week, we've finally got it to the point where we can get the temp up to around the mid-'60s for most of the day, which isn't bad. And once we get the new blinds on the windows this week, our ability to keep that heat inside should improve dramatically. In the meantime, it still feels like we're just kind of camping in the house, but life will gradually start to feel more normal. Torger did his radio show last night, and I'm going to force him to watch the Oscars with me later this evening. And when we go to sleep, we finally get to be in the same room, in the same bed. Even with icy feet and having to negotiate for an equal share of the covers, that's a great thing.

Day 124--Back in the Fort

When Torger was in the hospital for weeks at a time going through chemo, and then the transplant, he learned how to stare straight ahead for long spans of time. He said that it was a constant challenge to stay busy and mark time, so when he reached the point where he couldn't read or watch any more television, he'd just sit and stare. He believes that others who have spent long periods of time in the hospital will understand this experience...and the need to just make time pass when the days are long and slow. This is one reason that Torger was so responsive to Dr. Tse's requirement that he rinse his mouth with saline or peroxide every 15 minutes to prevent mouth sores...it gave him a way to break up his day into smaller chunks.

But our post-transplant experience was completely different. Neither of us can believe how quickly the time has passed. We moved into the hotel with stacks of books, magazines, movies, music, and games that we thought we'd need to make the time pass...but we hardly made a dent in the pile. Having almost daily appointments at the hospital set the parameters around which our days revolved, and when we weren't there, I was working from our room, or we were running to the grocery store or making the trek into downtown Denver to get to the bank. We had to time our activities around both Torger's medication and infusion schedule and the housekeeping staff, who needed to get in to clean and maintain the room. (I don't know why it never occurred to me before that hotels don't just provide maid service to make us comfortable...they also need to make sure their rooms aren't getting trashed! We agreed with the hotel from the beginning that they could come in three or four times a week, if not daily, to at least make sure the trash was emptied.) We celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, CSU's Bowl win, my friend Stacy's wedding, the birth of Jean and Ted's grandbaby, the November elections, and Obama's inauguration in the hotel. We didn't watch the Super Bowl there, but we could have if we'd wanted to. Our baby niece, Bea, learned to say "aunt" and "uncle" while we were there. We cooked hundreds of meals with the two-burner range and toaster oven, and I learned to never, ever again complain about the lack of counter space in my kitchen at home. We learned a lot from the experience, and now we're home...sort of. We're actually in the Hilton in Fort Collins (using some of our now vast collection of hotel rewards points) while I finish getting the house cleaned and organized. Marcy, Brandy, and Alex were up again yesterday from Denver to vacuum, hang drapes, and put furniture back where it belongs, but there's still a lot to do before Torger can stay in our house. I should be able to wrap it all up so we can sleep in our own bed tomorrow night for the first time in four months. And I'm sure, once we're there and settled in, it will seem normal again in no time at all. But I think our definition of "normal" and "time" will never be quite the same again.

Day 122--Almost Through

Tonight is our last night in the hotel...at least, in this hotel. We're moving back to Fort Collins in the morning but will need to stay in a hotel up there for a few days while I finish reassembling our house. In the last few weeks--and with a considerable amount of help from family--we successfully got the carpet pulled up, refinished the wood floor in the bedroom, pulled off the grungy wallpaper in the office, repainted the office and the bedroom, got new windows installed in both, and had the exterminators in to seek and destroy any wayward mice . We've given away our rugs and a whole bunch of books--which in our house barely made a dent, but nevertheless eliminates the one open bookshelf in the bedroom with dust-collecting potential. We now have our new, HEPA-filter vacuum, which I still have to figure out how to use, and the new blinds are ordered and should be installed next week. We also have a new couch ordered, and we'll just have to throw a sheet over the old one for a couple of months until it arrives. All of this is wonderful, but right now, we have random books and furniture all over the house and sawdust from the floor still lingering in corners and, actually, right out in the open. So we'll be tackling that tomorrow, with much help from kind-hearted folk. And speaking of kind-hearted folk, Sandy (the hotel manager) and Celeste (the sales manager) came by our hotel room to say goodbye this afternoon. They gave us each a fancy hotel bathrobe and a box of chocolates, and they also said that they'll give us the staff rate any time we want to stay here in the future. That just about guarantees we'll spend some nights back here when we have to come down for any early-morning appointments. We've actually grown really attached to the hotel staff, from Miss Jean who runs the kitchen and makes really amazing muffins to the "tiny tornado" housekeeper Angelica, to Homero the maintenance guy, to Kelvin, Alejandra, Derrick, and Aaron at the front desk. I feel like I've actually gotten to know some of them a little bit, and I'll miss seeing them every day. (Of course, I've invited all of them to a CSU basketball or volleyball game next time they decide to enjoy their "staff rates" at any of the Hilton-family hotels in Fort Collins.) When we check out in the morning, we'll have been here exactly 4 months and a day--a third of the year. Anyway, better stop typing now so I can go finish packing.

Day 117--Who Was That Masked Man?

I actually took this about a week ago after Torger's eye exam, while we were waiting for his CT scan. His eyes were dilated, so he had to wear the weird new optometrist's glasses that don't have arms but just stick right onto your face. Together with his bald head and duck-billed mask for going out in public, he had a good alien thing going.

Physical therapy went well on Friday, although Torger was amazed at how much it tired him out. They had him do 5-7 minutes on the treadmill at about 2 mph, followed by 3 minutes of cool-down. Then he did some leg and arm lifts with the giant rubber bands. He did the treadmill again at the hotel this morning (after we wiped it down carefully). He'll stick with the 5-7 minutes this week and then bump it up by 5 minutes a week. Rich, the therapist, wants him to come in one more time before we go home, and then about once a month after that. (Sorry this picture is a little blurry...I took it with my Blackberry.)

Day 115--Starting PT

Torger is finishing up his last set of appointments before we move home...he had another skin biopsy on Wednesday and will meet with an endocrinologist next week. He'll also have to have some bone density scans. But today is the exciting one because this is his first appointment with a physical therapist. As I've mentioned before, he's pretty deconditioned after the transplant and several months of fairly limited activity. The whole time he was in the hospital, he'd get himself out of bed to do leg lifts and laps around the floor, but the post-transplant fatigue is harder to fight...especially when it's too cold or windy to walk outside. (He's also supposed to avoid much sun.) He can't be in the hotel's workout room when other people besides me are in there exercising, so you can see the problem. Walking the hotel halls and carrying the clothes basket down to the laundry room is a workout these days, and he finds it hurts when he leans on one elbow for too long because there's just no muscle there. So this appointment signals the real start of getting back into a more normal level of activity.

The Love Spud

When I was grocery shopping recently, I found this potato, which Torger named The Love Spud. Since Valentine's Day is just over a week away, I wanted to share it with all of you so that you, too, might share in the Valentine's spirit. I like how the little, crooked line on the righthand side looks like its potato heart is breaking just a wee bit. I actually gave it my sister, Marcy, after I took this picture, and her 1 year old promptly took a bite out of it. Either that is a warning to all her future boyfriends, or a sign that this younger generation has no sense of romance!

Day 112--Still in the Hotel

Both my cell phone and my secure connection to my work computer seem not to be working at the moment, but at least I can update the blog! We've had a pretty hectic week trying to get things ready to move back home. Even though we have permission to leave the hotel three days from now, we'll probably be here one more week beyond this one as we try to finish up our great last-minute remodeling escapade at the house. As always with this kind of stuff, it's taking twice as long and causing twice as many headaches as originally planned, but we actually planned for that, so we're doing OK. Thanks to Alex, Brandy, Mark, Marcy, and Mom for spending the day at the house Saturday sorting through stuff, taking down blinds, and cleaning up sawdust left from refinishing the bedroom floor. I can't even express what a huge help they've been in this whole process. Torger really, really hates the fact that he can't help, but that's kind of the point of this whole thing. He was on the computer last night reading about aspergillus and brain fungus in AML patients, and everything he read started freaking him out just a little bit more. There was a whole article about how pillows are a problem, which we already knew...but somehow seeing it in writing can make it seem more daunting. We both agreed he probably shouldn't ready that stuff for awhile. He did have a really interesting dream the other night. Somehow, Rod Blagojevich was hanging around him in his dream, and Torger just couldn't shake him. At one point, Blago scalded himself with some water and dream-Torger was trying to get him to put something cool on the burn, and Blagojevich wouldn't listen but also wouldn't stop complaining about it! Then when dream-Torger would talk to other people, Blagojevich would pop up and start accusing them of talking about him. It was a pretty funny dream, actually, but Torger was just annoyed when he woke up.