Day 65 - The Final Surgery

Today marks the day of Daniel's last graft surgery - it's also his mom's birthday so that's a nice gift! As long as it goes well he'll be all patched up. It is very likely that he may need future surgeries like 18 months from now to graft more skin to his armpits to allow more flexibility. But that's so far off from now we can't think about it now. Burns are the injury that "keeps on giving"... (...you more pain and surgeries apparently).

We walked Daniel down to his surgery pre-op pit stop (well he was in a bed, but we walked alongside and held hands). Once there he seemed to be quite alert and rather unhappy about the whole thing. I think he's formed memories from the prior escapades to surgery pit stop row and remembered that this was not his happy place. We continued to soothe and help him relax. It was hard to tell what he was thinking - am I scared? am I uncomfortable? do I hurt? why am I here again? dad, stop rubbing my neck? We just could not tell or help him that much, so we told him to be brave and that it would be the last time here; that this would be the shortest and easiest of all the surgeries. Then the anesthesiologist gave him some Fentanyl and not surprisingly he calmed WAY down and was wheeled into his operating room.

Dawn and I stepped out for lunch. When we returned we found this giant poster "get well card" sitting in his room with a nice card from one of my teacher friends from Euclid. I wish we'd been here when it was delivered. It was so unexpected and touching. On the one side there were short notes of support from students from Euclid and on the other side was Daniel's photo from the first day of the blog.

That's me with Leadership Class
on the Challenge Course from this past fall.

Yes Daniel
Get Well Soon

So we're waiting for Daniel to return from surgery. I've placed the big poster on the foot of his bed so he can see it when he slides into his bed.
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We just got word that Daniel is through with his surgery, but still agitated so Dawn is meeting him in post-op while I stay here in his room.