Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 1509

Today is sleep day.

The nurse just drew some more blood, or tried to draw some more blood. To me it looked a little like a gangster sticking a needle in someone and rotating it around a bit to make sure it hurt pretty good. It took so long to draw the tube of blood that the blood clotted in the draw tube. David could tell she was having a bad day so he offered her a Root Beer Popsicle, (I could have understood a cherry or lime, but a ROOT BEER), this son of mine is a saint too. She enjoyed the popsicle and I think she really enjoyed the gesture. Within minutes, David is sleeping again.

David came through the surgery with flying colors. Mainly red. He now has all three open wound areas closed with new skin, and yes, they were able to avoid the tattoo on his back. The only problem with the closed wound areas is that they have caused 3 new wound areas - they took two from his right leg and 1 from his left leg. If you have never seen a skin graft before, it is a little like a motorized PLANER/CHEESE SLICER that cuts a 2"wide strip of skin that is approximately 1/16" deep and about 8 to 10" long. Before the surgery, as you may have recalled, I told David this was really going to really hurt and then a corpsman came in later and told him it did not really hurt - it was more of a burning or a stinging sensation. Last night David said, "Dad, you were right - this really hurts!" From that point on we have tried to keep him sleeping as much as possible. You know, nurses really are quite incredible, but when they each have 5 to 13 guys, all with wounds like these, they tend to forget the little things that really can make a difference. (i.e. Softly walking into a room, turning out the lights when they are trying to sleep, closing the door so the room can remain quiet, not catching a tube in the bed rail, not catching an x-fix under the bed rail, etc, etc, etc) I'm not holding a grudge, it's just that when it hurts him, it hurts me and David has to reassure Lynnette that it's OK!

When David was coming out of anesthesia, he thought we were in the wild west and was wondering where his cowboy hat was. He saw pebbles and dirt all over the floor. He soon realized where he was and he told us to get him back to his room because he didn't like it there. He also told us that when he had his arm surgery for his compound fracture, several years ago, he remembered coming out of sedation in the recovery room and thought that he had died - the ceiling was painted with clouds and the room was the perfect temperature and he just rhought he had died and this was his new beginning in Heaven until an "Indian Guy" stuck his head in view and asked how he was doing. He enjoyed some ice chips and we headed for his room.

The recipient area of the skin grafts will be left alone for 5 days. We have been told that the pain should be tolerable after about 2 days. After the 5 days the wound vacs will come off and David will be almost TUBE FREE. I know he is really looking forward to getting back in the wheelchair. Hopefully, by then, the sauna outside will be down to a cool 90 degrees and 98% humidity. It is a scourcher today.

David woke up to get more medication and I asked him if he wanted to say anything to all of you. He wanted me to tell all of you that he is "moving forward, doing what he is suppose to do, and that he'll be out there with all of you soon!", then he fell back to sleep. I know it sounds like his recovery it is going great, and it is, but, the necessary medications make it very difficult for him to carry a complete thought or a meaningful conversation more than a few minutes - it is all going to just take time.

I keep getting interupted and it has taken me almost an hour to write this so, I'll write more later.

Aubrey and Laura Brecht came in yesterday and it was great. They brought all kinds of goodies and they brought David a great Mickey Mouse Pirate Hat from Disneyland. They also had a folder of letters from the Silver Mine School in Connecticut and those beautifully fantastic kids drew David great pictures and wrote him notes and letters - it really put many many many many many many great smiles on his face. Thank You!!!!!!!!!

For all of you EOD Techs out there - David wanted me to tell you that he received a certificate for a PELICAN case of his choice and you can't have it.

Thank You All,

Gordon