It has been a crazy month.

We have a new home.

It takes some adjusting. With some great help from some wonderful family and friends who helped us pack an entire house and move into a new home, we were able to complete the move over the last weekend.
We didn’t expect the transplant to come right before the move. We thought we would have a few weeks to pack the house and purge some of the stuff we had accumulated over the last 11 years. As much as we were ready to move in the months leading up to the move, we weren’t really ready when the actual move needed to happen. Such is our life. Those who know me might say this is typical.

Now that we’re in the new home, we need to get used to new habits and a new way of life. We sleep on opposite sides of the bed. I never thought this would happen. We wake up earlier. I take a different route to work. I still need to find a new coffee shop. We eat at the kitchen table. We sit on the back deck outside and enjoy the evening sunsets.

Things are different, but better.

Nikki’s New Lungs are in a new home.

Nikki was waiting on the transplant list for the gift of a new set of lungs for just under 3 years and 3 months. Now that it has happened, it’s taking some adjusting. It started with the generous gift from a family in distress that made the life changing decision to help a complete stranger. With the help of a wonderful team of surgeons and staff at the University of Minnesota, Nikki’s New Lungs have a new home as well. When she received the call, she thought she would be ready to move. Of course, mentally she was ready. Her lung functions and quality of life had significantly deteriorated over the last several years. Her old lungs weren’t working for her. So physically she was ready. As was the case with our residential move, neither one of us had our bags packed to go to the hospital.

Nikki is getting used to a new way of life with her new lungs. She’s still not sleeping well. Because her body is still retaining fluid, she cannot lie down. She sits up all day and has to attempt to sleep sitting up. Remember, she is now on the opposite side of the bed. I plan to use this as proof that she woke up on the wrong side of the bed for years to come. She does manage a few cat naps, but if she’s able to get a couple of hours of undisturbed sleep, that’s a success. I was on the phone with a friend the other day and I told him that she was doing well. She interrupted me and yelled that she was miserable. She said she wasn’t sleeping and couldn’t handle all the extra water weight she was carrying around. It was a momentary lapse of optimism. Since she’s been taking Lasix to help her body get rid of the excess fluid, she’s dropped 15 pounds of water weight. Most of this has happened in the last few days. All things considered, she’s doing well.

Nikki is forming new habits too. She’s freed up plenty of time because she doesn’t need to spend the nearly 40 hours each week doing vest treatments, nebulizer treatments and preparing and cleaning up after these activities. She’s still learning how to breathe with her diaphragm. This is something she hasn’t done for years. She gets up early and makes herself breakfast which was unheard of in the first 37 years of her life. She likes applesauce. It helps her to digest the mountain of pills she needs to take.

Some things haven’t changed. Nikki is still diligent about walking on the treadmill to improve her health. Every day, she has been setting new records for both speed and time on the treadmill. She took Rosie for her first walk around the new neighborhood today. And we still have a wonderful group of family and friends who have continued to support Nikki throughout her journey.

We’ve had friends who have volunteered to make the trek out to the house to hang out with Nikki. She’s required to have somebody with her in the house for the first three months after she returns home. These friends come over for about 3 hours at a time and help her around the house. She can’t bend over, so if she drops something, they may need to bend down and pick it up. She seems to drop a lot of things when I’m around. I think it’s a ploy to get me some regular exercise. She has begun timing our friends to see who can change her compression fittings on her arms and legs the quickest. She can’t drive for the first few months, so friends and family have volunteered to take her to some of her doctor’s appointments. With the incision, she has to sit in the backseat. These are the “Driving Miss Nikki” shifts. And of course, we’ve been treated to some wonderful take out and home cooked meals from the friends who have signed up for the “Dinner Shifts”. I think we should call them the “Sunset Shifts”. It all helps to make this transition a little bit easier. A special thank you to Annie for taking the time to help coordinate all of the help.  Many people have asked what they can do for Nikki.  Please reach out to anniesaukko@gmail.com if you would like to lend a helping hand.

Things are different, but better.