Friday 09/04/09
6am (5am SLC time)
Okay, it's my day off so I can "sleep in" but I find myself up and calling the Burn Unit.... what's up with that? Anyway, Ericka said that Mike has been paralyzed all night since his surgery because they didn't want him to move around after having grafts on the face. The payalyzing agent was turned off at 4:30am so he should start to wake up pretty soon.

The grafts they used were processed somewhere back East so they don't know who donated the graft. Thanks to the person who decided to be a donor. By the way, for those of you who are freaking out about having cadaver skin as a donor graft, don't freak. It is not going to be permanent. They use donor grafts as a temporary patch to help the blood vessels to be stimulated and to help lay a granulation foundation and to speed up the healing process. The patient will eventually reject the graft and usually the doctors will have used autografts (by the patient, for the patient) to replace the donor graft site by then. This takes usually days to about a week. Sometimes it takes a couple of rounds of donor grafts to prepare the tissue underneath to be ready to accept a permanent graft. (We are all learning about this. Pretty cool eh?)

Mike has been on the ventilator all night. Back up to 50% on the oxygen setting. They have been working with his oxygenation and blood pressure all night. Ericka says that overall "he's doing pretty good". In other words: He's holding his own...status quo (for the extent of his injuries)

More later,
and so we go
JaCee