Friday, August 29, 2008

WARNING--Not for the faint of heart

At the end of this post are a couple of pictures of Gracie's wound without any covering.


Today I went in to see Gracie and to my surprise the wound vac was not on her chest! Apparently the Plastic Surgeon felt that the graft looks good and wants some air to get to it, so all that is on it is an antibiotic ointment. I guess the plan is to reassess it on Wednesday and then we will know when the next surgery is. What will happen is they will take a piece of skin from Grace's upper thigh--not as big as her wound--and then they will run it through this special machine that smooths and stretches it, the they cut it to match the wound. They will then suture it, cover it with the wound vac and let it heal. Quite the process!

It still hasn't been decided when they will actually extubate Grace. They are either going to do it soon so she has a few days before the surgery or just wait until she comes back from the OR. The good thing is that Gracie is handling the spontaneous trials wonderfully--she has one every 6 hours for an hour at a time. She isn't breathing hard or laboring, she even can sleep soundly and peacefully through the trial. I know this might not sound like that big of an accomplishment, but it really is. She is learning to breathe all over again and it is a lot of work, something we take for granted.

The only update is that they have weaned her more off of her methadone and adavan which is causing her to be more agitated and fussy. I have never seen her act the way she did today--she was practically inconsolable unless I continuously was bouncing her bum. While I was holding her, we decided to give her some morphine (normally it does nothing for her) it knocked her out instantly and when she woke up she was just very mellow. Gracie really is amazing!! She has come a long way.


1 comment:

Erica said...

Oh my goodness!!! Her wound looks awful and you say it is looking better. Gracie is a tough little girl. I am glad she is making progress on the vent, and is doing better. You are a wonderful mom.