Surgery update

We went in yesterday morning at 6 am expecting Ryan to be the first case as scheduled.  It wasn't until about 9:30 that we found out that they had two urgent cases and the schedule had been adjusted with Ryan being bumped to third case.  Ryan didn't mind too much, he just laid back and took a nap.  They finally rolled him back at nearly 1 pm, but not before letting me kiss his scarred cheeks goodbye.  The next time I saw him his shoulders would be replacing the skin on his face.

The doctors came out at 4:30 and let me know that the procedure went well.  They were able to remove a lot of the scarring on Ryan's face and completely close his left shoulder.  There is an open area about 2"x3" on his right shoulder that couldn't be closed.  They covered it with integra (synthetic skin) and a wound vac, and will go back and graft that area later.  I got to go see Ryan recovering in ICU at about 5 pm and he was still coming out of the anesthesia.  When he finally began to rouse himself, I asked him how he was doing and he said, "Hurting."  He told me he felt like he got hit by a Mack truck.  The nurse gave him some pain medication and something for nausea, and he drifted back to sleep.  He woke up shortly after and was doing well.  By 7 pm, he was ready to move down to the Burn Ward and his pain was down to a 5 on a scale from 1-10.  While they got him settled in his room, I ran downstairs to Burger King and brought him back a large vanilla milkshake.  As soon as he got that, he sucked it down and was feeling pretty good.  Of all the things that might be bothering him, his eyes hurt the worst.  They didn't do anything to his eyes, but because they were working so close to them they were open a lot of the time he was under and became really dry.  He's used to wearing his moisture lenses all day and hasn't had to deal with dryness in his eyes since he got the lenses.  His eyes were throbbing when he woke up and he could hardly feel anything but the pain in his eyes.  While we waited for his eye medication to show up in the computer, I soaked gauze bandages in ice water and pressed them to his closed eyes.  That gave him some relief until we could get his eye drops and lubrication.

When I left him last night at 9 pm, his pain was down to about a 3 and he was listening to his iPod and trying to sleep.  I called this morning and talked to his nurse and she said that his eyes were the only thing that were bothering him last night, but once they got the right combination of lubricants down, he fell right to sleep and slept through the night.  Visiting hours start at noon today, so I'll be going in to see him then.  We'll know in the first couple of days if the surgery was completely successful.  So please pray that the flaps have good circulation and Ryan remains as comfortable as possible.  Thanks so much.