Day 31: May 7, 2012

Day 31                                                                                                    Written May 7, 2012 8:45pm

Dallas seemed to have a good day early this morning. I didn't get here until after lunch time, so Travis, Donna, and Gregg updated me on how he was doing.  Seems that Dallas had a restless night, waking up around 3am and not going back to sleep for the remainder of the night.
Travis said that he didn't eat breakfast, but the dressing change went well, and his physical therapy was better than yesterday. Dallas walked all the way past the nurses station, kicked the ball a few times, and walked back. After getting back into the room, he played basketball for a few minutes and worked on doing squats and other strengthening exercises.
Dallas didn't eat lunch today. As a matter of fact, he didn't really eat at all today.
When I got here this afternoon, Dallas was sleeping and didn't wake up until around 5pm. The doctors came in and said that he was going to need another blood infusion because his hemoglobin count was low, down to a 7.6. He has to have two units of blood this time. It'll take a few hours for the infusion, then they will wait about 4 hours before drawing blood to check his hemoglobin level again. Hopefully by the time of surgery tomorrow, his levels will be back up. On the bright side, he hasn't had a fever in the last three days!
Dallas' surgery is scheduled for 7am tomorrow morning, and could take up to 8 hours. It'll be a long day tomorrow, but it's a big step towards recovery. The plastic surgeons came in and was even more surprised with what they saw. Last week, the doctor felt they would have to graft the chin, along with the forehead, and some other spots on his face. Today, he felt pretty confident that they won't have to do the chin tomorrow; but aren't entirely sure about the other areas. We are praying that he won't need anything done to his face. It would be a miracle if it was completely healed, but it could happen.
We are going to try and keep Dallas up for a while tonight so that he is very sleepy, and may possibly sleep through the transport down to Pre-Op.
Keep him in your thoughts and prayers for tomorrow's surgery!