Friends and family,<\/p>\n
Great news to report! Dad\u2019s seventh surgery took place yesterday (Thursday) and Dr. Peck (one of our favorite doctors) told us that dad is doing extremely well despite the extent of his burns.<\/p>\n
The plan going into surgery was to take a look at all of the cadaver grafts and, if he was healing well enough, replace them with dad\u2019s own skin. This is called autografting. (If you recall, dad had all his grafts removed in his 3rd surgery because the tissue underneath wasn\u2019t doing well.) Things looked great, so the doctors removed all available skin on dad\u2019s back and grafted it to his chest, abdomen, arms, front of his thighs and part of his hands. They were able to cover such a large area by using a mesh technique that allows the skin to cover 3 times the original area.<\/p>\n
Capillaries should begin growing into the autografts within the next five days and then the holes will fill in. There is risk that some of the skin may not take, but this can be replaced in subsequent autografts. His back will heal in two weeks, to allow additional autografting to the rest of his hands and legs.<\/p>\n
His face his doing well. The grafts on his eyelids are healthy. It is unknown how long his eyes will remain sutured shut. The doctors replaced the grafts on his cheeks, chin and forehead with more xenografts (pig skin). They still hope these areas will heal on their own with minimal grafting. <\/p>\n
A hand surgeon placed temporary metal pins in his left fingers. This is common for burn amputations. The hands and fingers do need to heal a more before they are able to receive complete grafts. We hope this can be done in the next couple weeks.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t know when dad\u2019s next surgery will be or when he will be less sedated and out of the coma. (The doctors indicated they might give him a week off since he has had one or two surgeries per week since the accident!) Since last Saturday, he has done really well breathing on his own. The day prior to his surgery he spent the entire day off the ventilator. He is placed back on the ventilator at night to allow him to rest. <\/p>\n
We hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend… don\u2019t forget to tell your family how much you love them!<\/p>\n
Colin and Ian <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friends and family, Great news to report! Dad\u2019s seventh surgery took place yesterday (Thursday) and Dr. Peck (one of our favorite doctors) told us that dad is doing extremely well despite the extent of his burns. The plan going into … Continue reading