A quick update before going to bed:
Tomorrow Mauri will undergo the first of his operations. At 9:00AM they will take thin layers of skin from his legs and graft them to his right arm and hand, and part of his left arm. Depending upon how things go, they may do his next surgery next Monday in which they would do some more grafts. The fact that they have decided to do the surgery already is a good sign. It will also be much better for him because the cleaning sessions each day are very painful, and they cannot completely sedate him each day because the constant use of the medications would have serious effects on the liver. When I arrive for the first visit each morning, it is almost impossible to talk to him. He is still usually under the effects of the anesthetics, and in a lot of pain. My logic tells me that once they graft some skin, since all of the dead tissue will have been removed - and because they will have to be careful with the newly grafted skin- that the future cleaning sessions will be a lot less harsh. They are waiting to see what happens over the next few days- how his back responds- before they decide how much will need to be grafted there, and how much will regenerate on its own.
What's frustrating to me is that I cannot go in and see him- not even before he goes into surgery. I don't understand the logic- especially if it is supposedly due to infection control protocol. The nurses go outside and smoke in their scrubs and then go right back in- no pulling their hair back, washing of hands or gloves before going back to where Mauri is...
Since I don't see even a minimal amount of infection control being practiced by the nurses- it makes no sense to me that I can't even go in with a gown on.
Of course you'd think that I'd have grown accustomed to a typical hospital logic here by now (my favorite being that the hospital basically doesn't function on the weekend), but the health care provider side of me has a hard time accepting many of the things I see and hear about each day. Mauri is pretty frustrated too.
On a happier note, we were finally able to talk to a doctor that was willing to inform us about Mauri's status, and he said he would tell us more tomorrow after the operation. This was the first real update we'd had since Mauri arrived on Thursday- except for the minute and a half that a doctor talked to us yesterday. She, however, rushed an explanation, and didn't really answer any of our questions like today's doctor.
Well, tomorrow I will let you know how the operation goes.
besos