Day 78 - Updates

Good news. Daniel's liver numbers seem to be improving and trending downwards. If that continues trending down in the morning he will be discharged from the burn floor to begin his rehabilitation full-time on the 8th floor. We're happy with the improvement in his liver as this was the only thing holding him back from rehab. Results from some of the tests are still pending and they would identify if the problem is an autoimmune disorder or something else. The tests can take up to a week so we won't know for sure if there's a larger issue with his liver, but for now things seem to be improving. More likely than something truly bad with his liver is that there was an interaction with the drugs that caused temporary harm to his liver, but as I said he seems to be bouncing back.

Too many onions!

His OT J. worked with him this morning doing arm stretches. She believes his left arm was forming scar bands which is a normal thing to happen with extensive burns, but wanted to rule out HO that could be forming along his elbow joint. An x-ray was ordered of his left elbow. We saw the x-ray picture the technician took of his arm before he left the room. Though we haven't heard an official word yet from his attending doctor, we're pretty sure that what we saw was HO. I'm just hoping we are wrong. He already has HO in his right arm so this would really limit his ability to do many tasks when he gets home with now both arms compromised.

Today Daniel seemed a bit more cranky than he has. He didn't want any interaction, touching or hand holding or really much of anything from me today. I wanted to get some lotion on his dry skin, but even that was something he wasn't much interested in. I was able to rub lotion into his lower legs and he seemed cool with that, but I couldn't do much anywhere else. Poor guy.

His PT S. worked with him today as well. More stretching of his arms was her focus. The PTs & OTs are thinking they need to do stretching with Daniel twice per day so they're using their time with him to do that instead of practice walking or doing more functional tasks like manipulating puzzle pieces or feeding. Leave that stuff to rehab.

I can tell the stretching hurts like crazy and he's not happy at all about it, but he's letting them get their work time in with him so that's something. This afternoon during round 2 I thought it would be best to let the PT work on Daniel without me in the room to see if he would be more cooperative with them. (Maybe less whiny?) I'm looking in through a small window watching them work right now. It seems to be going okay. He's laying in bed, the PT is using lotion on his shoulders and arms to help calm him and talking in a low soothing voice, encouraging and going slowly with the stretches. He's doing pretty good considering what they are doing to him.

The PT finished up with Daniel. She felt he did great especially with his shoulders. He would not let her move his elbows at all though. He would tighten and #RESIST - his own form of protest! After the PT finished I built a little fort of blankets and found objects to let Daniel's head hide in and he let me hold his hand again.

Later today I will try to take things easy with Daniel, just try to keep him awake and maybe slightly perturbed with me, but otherwise take things easy. I don't mind if he's a bit pissed off with me - maybe it will take his mind off his body and the pains that are signaling through his system. It seems like he's not too happy today so I'm not planning to work him too hard. We'll try to get a good meal in this evening.

That's the plan.