Saturday May 22, 2010

Good News and optimism from the surgeon at the hospital in Washington. He feels that David is a good candidate for prosthesis!This is very surprising to us considering how high we thought the amputations were. Right now his left leg is about 6 inches from his hip/pelvis, and his right leg is 4-5 inches above the knee. They currently do surgeries every couple of days to clean out the wounds and try to get the skin to stretch over the area to help close it off. David's right hand has very limited function of the thumb, index finger, and middle finger because he sustained injury to his ulnar nerve. Down the road they may be able to repair that, but we are unsure at this time. He also lost some tissue to his right thumb and palm area. We will have to see what the next few days bring as they try to wake him up and to see what his function of that hand his. His kidney function is still being closely watched. They are not currently doing dialysis because his potassium (K+) is under 6.0. If it reaches 6.0 or higher than they will have to do dialysis to clear this out of his blood. They are closely watching his hct (blood level) because he has lost a lot of blood during the numerous surgeries. His pelvis is stabilized with rods. At this time David is unaware, or so we think, of his injuries. He is on a ventilator and sedated. If you talk at him loud enough you can get him to open his eyes briefly. Thursday they are planning on waking him from his sedation. We all pray for him and for his mind and body to be able to take this breaking news. None of us know what he is aware of at this point.