Day 32: May 8, 2012

Day 32                                                                                                    Written May 8, 2012 8:08pm

Dallas fell asleep around 10:30pm but was back up at midnight. So Dallas and I played Lego Batman and watched some TV before he fell back asleep (around 3am).

The doctors came in about 6:15am to take him down to surgery. They gave him som Versed prior to going down; I think that the Versed in combination with his lack of sleep helped the transport run a little more smoothly.

They took him into surgery and had him sedated around 8:00am. We received updates every hour to hour and a half. Dr. Zeller advised us prior to surgery that it could take up to 8 hours. About 3:30pm they said that surgery was completed and he was being moved back to PICU. He will be on the ventilator until at least Friday.

Dallas' surgery went well. They were able to get all the areas grafted and were pleased with his progress. They did a lot more to the face than we thought they would, grafting everything except his eyelids, nose, and above and below the lips. They also had to do 3 to 1 lattice work (skin grafts) on his arm, his right side, his shoulders, the right side of his back and chest, and his right leg. They were hoping to be able to use 1 to 1 or 2 to 1, but due to the amount of full sheets that had to be used for his face, it limited his donor areas for other grafting.

They are trying to keep Dallas sedated for the first couple days. So tonight will have to stay realitively quiet with little interaction with him. Hopefully it'll be a good night for Dallas.