Day 40: May 16, 2012

Day 40                                                                                                  Written May 16, 2012 7:27pm

Dallas had a pretty good night, slept fairly well.  His temperature went up to 101.6 overnight, but gradually decreased.  They ran his feeds until about 7am, and shortly thereafter, Dallas woke up.  He had a few bites of applesauce for breakfast.  

Around 10am, we did Dallas' dressing change.  It seems like they are getting harder, emotionally, for Dallas.  He continues to anticipate pain, which makes it so much worse than it actually is.  This time, we had him take off as many bandages as he could do himself, which actually calmed him.  From here on out, we well definitely allow him to take a more active part in his dressings.  There was a spot that the occupational therapist was worried about, she said it looked like it could be an infection, so she passed that info along to the doctors.  

After Dallas' dressing change, the therapy dog came in to see Dallas.  He was so excited to see Cree.  She layed in the bed with him and he rubbed her.  He loved it, until she scratched his hand.  I think what happened was that her nail barely scraped his hand, but because his burned areas are extremely sensitive, it felt worse than it actually was (and his hand, the palm where she scratched, is all the way healed).  Once that happened, he began crying and said "Get out of my bed" to the dog, so it was a good visit up until that point.

Gregg brought Mac up here to see Dallas today.  He was so happy to see Mac!  They layed in bed together, played legos, played the game, and talked.  Mac seems to be handling this very well, all things considered.  They stayed up here for a few hours, which was great for all of us.  

Around 3pm, the resident doctor came in to check out the spot on Dallas' leg that they were concerned with.  There is a bandage on some of his donor sites called Aquacel.  Aquacel is an antimicrobial dressing with silver in it.  If the Aquacel gets wet, then it could develop an infection on it, thereby releasing an infection to Dallas' healthy and healing areas.  The doctors are concerned that this possible infection could be the reason for Dallas' spike in fevers.  So she came in and took some of it off, and we had to rebandage his leg.

After that, Dallas did physical therapy.  He walked from his bed, all the way to the nurses station.  There is a concern with Dallas' left foot, as his ankle is twisted out to the side, causing him to apply pressure in areas that shouldn't have pressure.  Tomorrow, we are going to go out to get Dallas some shoes to see if it helps with pressure support.  Dallas also climbed out of the bed with some assistance, which is a very big step for him.  

Dallas wanted sweet and sour chicken for dinner, so we went out and got him some.  He said he was going to eat eleven.  He ended up eating five pieces, but that was great!  So much more than he's eaten over the past month.  He also had a glass of sweet tea and a glass of lemonade!  

The nurse started Dallas' feeds back at 8pm.  They are going to run it all night, and the goal is to give him 75% of his caloric intake overnight.  

Earlier it was so cute; the nurse put the pulsox on Dallas' toe to get his oxygen reading.  Travis and Dallas were playing the Xbox and the reading went down to 81, and immediately started beeping.  Dallas said, "Please go out there and tell them I'm breathing!"  He was so upset that it kept beeping and he knew he was breathing ok.  So they turned it off for now, since all they really needed it for was his vitals anyway.  

We hope Dallas gets another good night of rest, and begins eating more tomorrow!