Day 70 - Rehab?

We just heard that Children's Hospital will not accept Daniel because he's too old for their hospital by two years. There were many people involved here trying to push for that move as our next step. They had built a case for his being developmentally at an age where he would respond better to the therapy provided at Children's, but it seems that no amount of discussion will yield that result. So that means that Daniel will most likely go upstairs to acute rehabilitation for his in-patient therapy once he's ready to be moved off the burn floor.

I'm not overly bummed by this decision. Dawn and I have been by Daniel's side every day. We will be involved with his therapy and interfacing with the therapists regardless of where that happens. We can help bridge the communication issues and follow up with therapy when he isn't working directly with staff. It's not a big deal really, but going to Children's would maybe have been better. We will be fine.

In the meantime the pain doctors came by today in force to install a catheter in his shoulder so that they can splint his right arm and put it in a straight cast for a few days. The catheter allows a nurse to pump a med that temporarily blocks all sensation to his elbow and down to his hand. Once the pain is blocked they can straighten his elbow and put it in a cast to stretch and overcome the contractures in his arm.

Here's the team of pain doctors and their travelling band getting ready to install the pain blocking catheter. So this answers the question: How many doctors does it take to install a catheter?

The answer is six. Well to be honest there were a few of these folks that were onlookers because they had not seen this procedure done before. This is a teaching hospital so any procedure that is a bit on the unusual side like this one gets an audience of people who can learn how it's done.

I like this sign. The bio hazard symbol is so awesome. It really feels like if I saw this I run in the other direction. I think I want something like this for my office someday. Perhaps the "soiled utility" needs to be changed to something else unless I go into the money laundering business then it might be appropo.

In a short while Daniel will be getting his wound care and the surgeons will inspect his graft on his arm and back. We hope they are healing and do not require any additional grafting because then we really can move on to the rehab phase of his recovery. I'll update this post once his wound care is complete.
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When Daniel's ST stopped by she discussed her concern for how lip is still a bit tight around his mouth. We had been using the MPA for that to loosen the skin being tugged by his chin's graft, but there's a larger mouth stretcher that they had wanted to use that they could not attach because of his ears and neck being burned. They would use a strap that holds it in place and the strap would look like a bulky orthodontic device we all had to wear when growing up with braces on our teeth.

We got both the MPA and the big mouth stretcher out. Dawn used her engineering brain to figure out that you didn't need a neck strap at all and that you could use the MPA to stretch and hold the mouth stretchers in place at each corner of his lmouth and it would work fine - maybe even better than any kind of neck/head strap! The ST was in awe. She took pictures of it all in his mouth and ran off to show her colleagues how easy this was to do. I think Dawn needs to send them an invoice for consulting services - maybe to the tune of our hospital stay $$$$.
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