post surgery

Sorry for the late post - know several of you were wondering on the outcome but this is the first chance I have had to give an update.

Cosima's surgery took about 2 hours. They just operated on her elbow but did not do the tracheotomy yet. This will be done on Friday as the surgeon wasn't available during her surgery to do it.

We have been told the surgery went well but don't have a ton of information yet as we haven't spoken directly to the hand surgeon. They did a split-thickness skin graft which contains the epidermis with only a portion of the dermis. They didn't have to take a portion of her muscle which is a better outcome. We won't know until Monday if it was successful and it has taken. The skin was taken from her upper thigh.

I have been told she will have to be sure to wear sunscreen diligently on her arm for the next year or so as it will be very sensitive to the sun. I am putting anyone with her while she is outside in charge of making sure she does this.

She was resting for much of the afternoon. The lights were off which was a refreshing change, nothing like florescent lighting shining down on you constantly. The head of the ICU likes the lights on as he thinks the it stimulates the patients so some nurses shut them off and he walks by and turns them on. It is actually a bit amusing. I was almost thinking about buying lamps but somehow don't think they would let those in.

Later on in the day we went to look at long term acute care facilities which is the next step in her recovery. I will post more on this later and go through the next steps. At this time the projection is for her to be at UNM in the ICU for about 1 to 1 1/2 weeks.