Out of Surgery

Dad came out of surgery yesterday afternoon, and it was indeed just a washout. Even though we really want to know, Dr. Duke has yet to reveal the next step of his plan. In the mean time we know he's till working on the middle area and he's not ready to graft that yet. He said the right graft is done and the left graft looks good. It sounds like all is moving in the right direction.

#66

In surgery. It sounds like today will just be a routine wash out, but I guess we'll only know for sure when it's over.

Good Things

Dad's back from surgery pretty quickly this time - we thought this might mean no grafting today, but that's not the case. They grafted the entire left side today!

Other than halting visitors for the next couple of days, there are lots of good things going on today regarding the grafting:

First of all they were able to use skin saved from Saturday's graft. I'm not sure how they save it, but I'm happy it wasn't wasted. We (dad in particular) are very happy that they didn't have to take any more from his legs. They are healing well.

Even though dad is through with the lights on his legs, they are now shining on the area grafted Saturday. This wound vac was removed today, so with no drains, no wound vac, and heat lamps shining, this side is now really healing.

The entire left side was grafted today and hopefully in a few days it will be able to shed the wound vac as well. Mom says that Dr. Duke is quite an amazing "seamstress".

In summary all is going well, but we'd like to hold off on visitors for the next couple of days while these grafts heal. We have yet to hear what they have planned for his mid-section (where the drains now reside). No one has mentioned grafting that part soon, but then again I didn't expect the other areas to get done so quickly either. Never the less it's clear that great things are happening.

#65

Update

I wish I had more to report, but mom has yet to have her Post Op meeting with Dr. Duke. Nevertheless, dad's feeling pretty good.

We do know that there was no grafting done yesterday, but since dad did go to surgery I'm guessing that they either did some washing, prepping, or maybe both. Today he was able to shed the lights on his legs, so he's free to have visitors again. (at least until they start grafting again) That's all I have to report, but I guess writing something is better than letting it look like he never came back from surgery.

I think pictures of him smiling make for better posts, so here's another that was taken with my phone. :)

#64

Dad went to surgery a little while ago. He was scheduled for 7:30 this morning, but got bumped until Dr. Duke could get to him. We aren't really sure what Dr. Duke plans to do today. When mom asked, he wasn't in the mood for chit chat, and he reminded her "I TOLD YOU, MONDAY, WEDNESDAY FRIDAY!" With that she decided it wasn't a good time to ask questions. Maybe they will prep a different area for grafting, maybe they will do some more grafting, maybe they will just do a washout, who knows... I probably shouldn't even speculate because I have no idea.

Anyway, as of yesterday I heard that the grafted area looks good. Hopefully that means that it is taking... or maybe it's too early to tell. Either way, we'd rather hear "it looks good", than "it looks bad".

Until Later....