Out-Patient Surgery

Update on Connor:

His incision scar has been oozing in two places for the past few weeks.  Last Monday we went to the Physiatrist, who after reviewing his situation called our neurosurgeon. They responded quickly and wanted to see Connor as soon as possible which happened to be at Legacy that afternoon. We went in and they decided that they needed to open the scar up - explaining that the skin was weak and needed to be fixed.  His appointment was set for today at 9:30 to repair this situation.

We arrived at 7:30am for prep prior to the surgery.  They took him back promptly at 9:30 and completed the entire procedure within an hour.

Dr Soldevilla explained that they were glad they went in because it appeared that the bracket holding the new skull piece in place was getting infected.  They removed the bracket completely and will not replace it. The skull bone has already started to grow over the plastic replacement piece and it will hold in place without a bracket.  They packed this location with powdered antibiotics and sewed him back up.  The stitches will stay in place for three weeks while it heals.
Unfortunately they had to cut through the jaw muscle again to get to this bracket, which was extremely painful in the last surgery. We are hopeful the recovery is quicker due to the limited size of incision.

 So far, Connor has had minimal pain.  The jaw muscle is sore, but he is able to eat.  It took several days for him to open his mouth, let alone eat last time around.  So he is already doing better.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

19 months out

Image
I haven't posted here in a while, so I thought I would put a picture up of Connor.  It has been 19 months since Connor's accident.  He is still experiencing seizures from time to time.  That is the biggest thing that he is battling.  He has been doing LENS neurofeedback once a week since October 2018 and we have seen significant improvement in his seizures and his life.  Beginning in January, he went back to work part-time and he has started to have a social life again.  He is still not 100%, but I'd say he's 95%, so he still has a ways to go, but with neurofeedback and his will to live, he will get there.   When this accident first happened, the drs and nurses all told us it would be a long road to recovery.  They told us it would be 2-3 years.  We just couldn't imagine what they were saying and how that could be, but darned if it isn't approaching 2 years already!  Recovery has been an excruciatingly slow process since he got out ...
Read more

Sunday, Sunday

Currently due to his condition and being in ICU, Connor is not accepting any visitors at this time. Lazy Sundays are nice to have, can't wait to enjoy them at home in lieu of Hotel Emmanuel. Connor has spent today napping off and on while getting a chance to see his brother and sister along with Mama and Papa who dropped by. Great to see him reach for them and have recognition on his face.  He will stay one more night in ICU due to it being Sunday (no moves apparently on the weekend) and the Hotel is full until some of the guests start checking out tomorrow morning.  They did change out his trach tube to a smaller size to continue his transition off utilizing this equipment and back to breathing through his mouth/nose again.  He is sleeping peacefully and his relaxed face is reflecting the healing that we are seeing in his brain. Hard to have him sleep while we are there, as we want to be talking with him and having him reacting to our conversation. But we also kn...
Read more

Home Run

Connor can have visitors on a 1-on-1 basis and they need to go through Shan.  He has been asking to see his friends. So if anyone would like to visit, please make arrangements with Shan.  360-984-4780 Well, it has been some kinda day today with Connor.  After sleeping well overnight (as well as you can in a hospital), Connor consumed his first breakfast in 5 weeks - chopped French toast, puréed eggs, yogurt and keifer.  He then went off to rehab where Dana, his therapist got him out of the wheelchair for his first steps. They proceeded over the next 30min to walk up and down the walkway with rails for an impressive three trips. By the end of the third trip, Connor was exhausted and sweating from working himself to the bone. His therapist was blown away by the progress over this week, she has been with him all week and has seen him go from barely balancing on the side of the bed to now walking.  Next up was his first lunch in 5wks which he proceeded to fa...
Read more