July 26, 2005
I'm here in Salt Lake City with my brothers and things are on track...for the most part. Mike is in a tremendous amount of pain as I'm sure you can imagine, but the medication takes the edge off and he's getting a healthy dose of sedation to ease the pain as well. He is still utilizing a respirator to assist his breathing, but at least it's not doing all of the work anymore. He initiates the breaths and it helps circulate the oxygen through his lungs. His left lung is not getting much circulation at this point due to a possible infection. More as we know.....
The burns on his left side (arm, hand, and foot) are healing well. He will have scars there, but we should see considerable improvement soon. The grafting on his back, right flank, right arm and leg are doing well considering the extent and deepness of the burns, plus he's starting to move around a lot more so he's agitating the grafts. More surgeries and grafting are ahead as it's a long process. His right hand has improved circulation, but at this point we still don't know how much of his fingers will be lost. His right foot needs a lot of work. In some places the bones and ligaments are visible, so plastic surgery will be needed to be able to apply a skin graft, the damage is very extensive.
His right foot is still in danger of amputation, but only as a last resort. More as we know....
He's looking at 2 more months of hospitalization and surgeries. After that- another 8 to 10 months of rehabilitation, occupational and physical therapy.
Hopefully within the next week he'll be off of the respirator so he can speak with us. It is painfully frustrating for him to try and communicate with us without a voice to do it with. We can see the great frustration in his face as he tries to mouth the words which we can't understand. He's gonna let us have it once that thing is out.
All in all, Mike's progress is going well. He has good days and bad days, right now it's good. I'll let you know more as we do. Thank you for your love and support and especially your visits.
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619-335-3542
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Thank you so much for everything that has been done on Michael's behalf.