Day 7 - 3rd day planned for surgery

Dan will undergo his third surgery that's scheduled for 2:10 this afternoon. Another 4-hour debriding session is planned with the chance for doing some skin grafting - but probably just debriding and maybe laying down some cadaver skin protectively until real skin grafts can be performed.

Daniel's surgery yesterday was a struggle for the surgeon. They started by taking a peek at his chest and the work they did last Friday during his first surgery. Things looked good on the front side so they flipped him and worked on his back. Plenty of work was completed, but as Dr. W. would move to another location on his back the prior areas would start to bleed - they were a bit stumped by all this and unsure as to why this was happening.

They had questions for us after Daniel was back in his room and safe.

• Do you have a history of bleeding in your families? No
• Does Daniel have problems with wounds continually bleeding? No
• Does he have problems where cuts and woudns won't clot? No

So we (collectively) were left with a big question as they didn't see any "good" reason for his bleeding issues. It left Dawn and I feeling low last night and it messed with my sleep. Dr. Wi. had not seen something like that in surgery with other patients: They'd finish an area, then find it would start bleeding. Suture it and then he'd bleed from another location that they'd previously finished working on and on and on. Like he had sprung leaks. The only thing they saw from his panels and tests was that his platelet count was low. Dr. Wi. was concerned he'd continue bleeding through the night, but that did not happen.

The plan for today then is to pump him full of fluids, give a unit of blood before the operation which has already happened and be ready to deal with what comes up during surgery. His platelet count before surgery was in the 80s and after a unit of blood it's now 137. That increase is a good response. Anything over 100 is ideal for going into surgery they tell us so we think Daniel's body will do much better in surgery today. I think the plan is to work on the chest and neck area and possibly his arms, although we think work on arms won't start until Wednesday.

When we arrived this morning Daniel's face was looking much better. All his fingers are currently unwrapped and looking blistered, but not too bad. Several fingers have no burns or very slight burns on them. That will serve him well once active therapy starts in a few weeks. His head is shaved down to a nub - first time we've seen him with a buzz cut.

Today's prior surgeries finished up early so Daniel will be leaving for his surgery soon. If they have him ready to go by 2pm that will be great says Dr. W. who came by to chat with us.

Evening update:
The surgery went really well today. Dan now has allograft or "cadaver skin" on his chest and back. Tomorrow they'll debride the arms and wrap them in cadaver skin and add splints to keep the arms straight.

Daniel has been slowly weaned off his sleepy meds - Versed. As it's been almost one week since his accident this is a good change, but may bring lots of challenges as he starts to be more awake. We may need to help him understand what's happened and keep him from hurting himself if we starts to move around. I guess we can't know how he will respond, but that time is coming soon.

Dan's BP was staying where it needs to be during surgery and it's doing fine now too.

Gary Hein stopped by while Dan was in surgery so he didn't get to visit with Daniel, but it created a welcome diversion for Dawn and I. Sometimes a nice change of pace is what we need, but it's hard to plan for them. The timing of his visit just turned out to be great.

That's about all I want to write for today. Pleasant dreams all.