These days Stacy drags (literally) himself out of bed at 7 a.m., watches his old house being demolished by strangers on a live video feed to his hospital room, and then goes to work almost full time trying to make his legs work.

On Tuesday, I barely recognized the man I first interviewed several weeks ago. I found Stacy and his wife Colleen in a break room on the physical rehab floor of University Hospital. Stacy was sitting in a wheelchair talking to Vickie Walker and her son A.J., who was shot in the head at Trolley. A.J.'s father was killed.

Their casual tone suggested the Walkers and the Hansons could have been talking about the weather instead of the horror that changed their lives. Listening in was a lesson in the human capacity to bond through tragedy.

"I'm looking for something positive to come out of this," Vickie said. "I want my husband's death to count for something."

Meeting for the first time, the Hansons and the Walkers discussed becoming involved in Teen Screen, a program that would "red flag" mental illness in young people.

Referring to the gunman Sulejman Talovic, Stacy said, "That kid was really messed up for a long time and no one did anything about it."

I hadn't expected to see Stacy again. A few days after our first meeting, his stomach perforated and he nearly died again. Doctors managed to get him into surgery just in time. His wife Colleen said the relapse was almost more than they could bear.

"We were back to where we were the night he got shot," Colleen said. "It was that bad."

There isn't a single facet of Stacy's life that Talovic didn't change. Because the doorways were too narrow to accommodate a wheelchair, the Hansons were almost forced to sell their dream home.

Fortunately, Utah Home Make-Over Project and Platinum Homes are remodeling the Hanson home. People the Hansons would have never met are tearing out the back of their home, installing a temporary wheelchair ramp, a wheelchair friendly bathroom, and widening the doors.

The ramp is temporary because Stacy doesn't plan on staying in the chair. He's grateful for the mobility of the chair now, but he knows he'll come to hate it. Doctors have said he may eventually be able to stand with braces on his legs.

Stacy is the last of the Trolley Square wounded still in the hospital. Shot three times, he still carries enough shotgun pellets to prevent him from entering an MRI.

A "wound vacuum" Colleen nicknamed "the Kirby," drones under Stacy's wheelchair, alternately draining the massive abdominal wound and pulling blood into it to speed healing. But it's rehab that takes the most out of him these days.

"I'm going to do everything I can to make sure my wife doesn't have a second job as my nurse," he said.

Colleen likes that idea, although it makes for a lot of work right now. She spends hours every day helping her formerly active husband try to do simple tasks such as picking things up off the floor and getting he foot up onto his knee in order to lace a shoe.

"He kept passing out when he first came to rehab," Colleen said. "He'd try too hard and faint. It was scary, but he doesn't do it much anymore."

On Tuesday, Hanson worked up a sweat passing a five-pound ball back and forth around his back. What looked easy was hard work. Colleen and a family friend stood by to prop him back up whenever he started to fall over.

Stacy understands there is no road back. The life he had is over. The road now leads in another direction. Like the Walkers, he wants that journey to mean something other than just where he's been.

rkirby@sltrib.com