Susan’s been out of the hospital for over a week now, and things are slowly settling back down to some semblance of a normal routine. She spent six bedridden days in the transplant recovery ward at UCSF waiting for her digestive tract to be stable enough to take medicines orally. Somewhere in the middle of those days was Valentine’s Day, marked by a high glucose reading/rejection scare and a late night ultrasound test (fortunately, all good); and the day after, my birthday, marked by Kaylee getting attacked by a homicidal German Shepherd during our morning walk (fortunately, no blood drawn). Not the best occurrences of those two annual events.

Now she’s at home and adjusting to a new, insulin-free routine: close monitoring of health readings, medicine regimen, and weekly trips to the hospital; plus twice weekly blood draws to help watch for any signs of rejection. So far not quite the blood chemistry isn’t quite perfect, but hopefully that’ll be sorted out with adjustments in medicine dosages in the next few weeks - knock on wood!

Otherwise, she’s mostly just bored, spending a lot of time on the couch as she waits for her abdominal muscles to strengthen. Meanwhile, we’re all very familiar with disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizers - all of us except the dog, that is, who is her usual obliviously unsanitary self. The two of us couldn’t have made it through this without the help of her mom and dad, who while I’m at work are at home entertaining the patient, walking the dog, and housekeeping. What would we do without parents?