And so the story continues...

Of course, it was back to Denver today. We finally got to take off Adam's dressings; he still had on the same dressings from surgery. They held up very well, especially considering they were on for eight days. I'm sure it helped that we didn't let him do much of anything this week.

It actually took them quite awhile to get us back into an exam room, so Adam made due in the waiting room by scooting around.

Below is the only picture we have of the actual dressing. I'm not sure how we didn't get any good ones, so this is it. As you can see (kind of) his right leg is totally wrapped up, and his left thigh is covered.


The nurse pulled off the DuoDerm on his side and was checking out the progress...


Next it was time to cut off the dressing on the right leg. As soon as the scissors came out Adam got upset. The boy is going to be permanently traumatized by the sight of scissors.

This leg was wrapped in layer...

after layer...

after layer... (and we didn't get pictures of them all).

There is a mesh layer covering the graft area.

Next it was time to unwrap the right leg. There was a large band-aid type covering over the entire area, and it was very painful to take off; that was probably the worst part.

Waiting to be wrapped up again...

After all of the dressings were off Dr. Moulton came to check things out. He was very pleased by the progress, especially of the donor sites. They are healed (by their definition, which varies greatly from my definition). The graft sites also look good, and our goal is to continue to let them heal undisturbed. They left the mesh covering on and just wrapped over it with the new dressing. In the pictures you might be able to see some of the black skin on the edges: that is donor skin that is overlapping good skin. It will just die and fall off.

They measured him for a compression garment today. It should come in in a couple of weeks, and if it fits properly we will order another one. He will wear the burn garment all of the time, they said 23 out of 24 hours in a day. They suggested that he wear it for about a year. He will continue to be fit with new burn garments as he grows. The compression mostly helps with scarring. By keeping things tight the scars will be flatter to the skin and less noticeable.

They didn't dress his left leg (the donor site), and we will do lotion massages on it four times a day to help with healing and scarring. They did a more normal dressing on his right leg -not so many layers- that goes to his knees. We asked the doctor if we should still limit his activity, and he said yes. He seemed quite surprised that Adam was able to walk with the splint on his leg; I don't think he understands this boy's determination. There is no splint now, but Adam has been fairly compliant with our not letting him walk around. Hopefully he'll be able to last out the next week without getting too cranky.

At our appointment next week they will see how things are doing and hopefully remove the dressings for good. We would then continue with lotion massage over the entire burn. Then we'll need to go back to get the burn garment, and hopefully that will fit well. They know that we are moving at the end of this month, and they've been really great with doing things in a way that will work out for us.

Speaking of moving, have a mentioned how stressful it is? We haven't even gotten into the thick of it, and it's already making my head explode. It could be because we're dealing with moving and all of this drama with Adam at the same time. Maybe one day I'll look back on this time and laugh about how crazy things were, but it is not this day. :)