Day 18: April 24, 2012

Day 18                                                                                                     Written Apr 24, 2012 6:43pm

Dallas had a decent night. It was great that he was able to sleep for a little while; something his little body definitely needed!

Most of the morning was calm for Dallas, until it came time to do his dressing change. Dressing changes are getting easier for us to do, but they are getting harder on Dallas. Most of this is due to his body beginning to heal. There are skin buds forming everywhere, which is causing them to grab onto the gauze; this makes it quite painful for Dallas. There is also more bleeding in different areas during dressing changes, but again, this is a good sign. The bleeding signifies that there is a good blood supply and the blood vessels are growing back in (which is wonderful). This dressing changed required more medicine than the last dressing change, which meant he was in more pain than before. But, during each dressing change, we are able to see a difference, he is healing better each day! Even though he is healing more and more, there will still be areas that must be grafted.

Dallas had a visit with physical therapy which went well. They had him blow bubbles, which made him really happy; but also worked out his lungs. He was able to work on strength in different areas, including his arms (as his right arm is extremely difficult to move due to the areas that must be grafted), his legs, his back and core muscles, and his neck. Once they got to the neck, he was ready to stop working; so they put a towel rolled up behind his neck, he leaned his head back to stretch, and then closed his eyes and started snoring. We all thought he had fell asleep, after a few minutes of the physical therapist trying to get him to continue, she believed it would be better to just let him sleep, so she left. A few minutes after she was gone, he peeked his eyes open to see if she was there, when he realized she was gone, he asked to watch television. Ha ha! He tricked her! We couldn't believe it.

Dallas was able to drink some of a chocolate milkshake, eat a little jello, and have a little bit of a smoothie. They have increased his feeds back to 75ml/hr. He hasn't required as much pain medicine as usual, which means he is tolerating the pain even more (or it is beginning to diminish somewhat).

Things are starting to look up. Peaks and valleys. We are just so happy it was a good day for him (in comparison to some of his others).