Day 11 - Saturday February 4th 2017

When we arrived this morning Daniel was in the tub room getting his dressings changed on his arms. Last night at 10pm they redressed his back and chest, but wanted to wait until morning to take a better look at his arms.

The report during morning rounds was fairly routine. He has fluid on his lungs - a week ago that had been diagnosed as pneumonia, but now there's just excess fluid so that's good news. His legs are puffy and he's retaining fluids there. The resident explained the difference and now Dawn and I understand what they look for in a lung x-ray for when there's fluid or actual pneumonia present. The focus for this weekend is to "tee him up as well as possible" so he's ready for skin grafting by Monday... or wait until his body is ready.

During dressing changes the team looks for an infection and they take cultures from his arms, chest and back if warranted. Those cultures take time before an infection can be identified. Then they treat with antibiotics both topically and by injection.

With each dressing procedure (which can take an hour or more) they give Dan some extra pain control meds because the task of moving, leaning on one's side and any debriding that they tackle can be more painful. With each of these redressings Daniel will spike for several hours with a higher fever then his temperature drops to normal and he seems less uncomfortable.

Later today Daniel will be sitting up in bed (with two nurses assisting) to continue his therapy and healing. Also planned for later today is another breathing test where they will shut down his vent and see how his body can work with no air support.

He has his arms out in airplane fashion all the time except for when they are doing the therapies mentioned or with dressing changes. Many patients find this to be very distressing, but so far Daniel seems to be handling it okay - and the more he can tolerate this the better it will be for preparing his arms and shoulders for having an improved range of motion when he has new skin taking hold. Maybe it can be said that the more therapy he can do now will yield better outcomes and an easier and shorter recovery down the line.

If there's items to report from the goings on later today I'll update this post tonight.
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