Day 10: April 16, 2012

Day 10                                                                                                   Written Apr 16, 2012 11:51pm

Dallas had a somewhat restful night. There were times when he was going in and out of sleep, but for the most part, he slept well. He did end up getting a fever yet again, 102.5 was the high, but it broke right before surgery.

He was taken down to the Pre-op waiting room around noon, they took him to the OR at 1pm or so, but wasn't able to begin surgery until right at 3pm. With the setting up of anesthesia, relocating his central line, putting in the ventilator and so on, it took longer than we initially thought. At around 5pm, we got an update call stating that things were still underway and going well. They advised it would be another hour and a half to two hours in the OR, plus the time getting him to post-op and waking up. So we figure around 8pm, he should be back in his room. We aren't sure if he's going back to the burn ICU, or going to the pediatric ICU. But we should be finding out soon.

The anxiety of all of this is taking a toll on the family members, but we are hanging in there. We cannot wait until he gets out and know for sure he is ok. I am praying that this is the only surgery that will be needed, however, we have been advised this is the first of several. Only time will tell.

Surgery was a long and stressful process for all of us, but especially Dallas. From 1 pm to 7pm, Dallas was in the operating room. There was no grafting done during surgery, but there was a lot that went on.

The facial plastic surgeons came out after surgery to let us know about how the proceedure went with them. They found out that there were areas that were deeper than they originally thought and that he will need some grafting done to his face. For the time being, they decided to put cadaver skin on his face as a dressing. This will help with the itching and exposure to the elements, as well as possibly produce new skin growth underneath. As of right now, the right side of his face is pretty deep, and he will definitely need some grafting done on his forehead. They aren't 100% sure about the other areas, and are hopeful that grafting will be to a minimum. The facial plastic surgeons also advised us that his right ear is pretty badly burnt. It doesn't appear to be bad, to us at least, but he may need grafting on it as well.

After about 2 to 3 hours, his regular surgeon/doctor, Dr. Zeller, came out and told us that she didn't do any grafting to the body. They did excise the deep burns, and placed integra (a synthetic barrier) to his elbow, as well as placed cadaver skin on other areas that were excised. She said that if he will be needed facial grafting, they want to make sure to use the best skin possible for that area, so they we're holding off for now on grafting.

Dallas goes back to the operating room on Monday to check out his burns to his face, as well as begin grafting the body. It has been estimated that 33.5% of his body and face was burned. Of this total, approximately 25% of this amount will need to be grafted.