January 22nd, 2011 by MIchelle

Danny got a cat scan this morning. Things are looking good and Doctor Gorsuch is planning on putting the bone flap back into place on Monday. Today has been the first day I noticed the skin over the missing piece of bone looking concave. That means the swelling is going down. It looks less normal, but it’s a good thing. After that we’ll just wait for however long post operation recovery takes before they move Danny to PCU. It could be a couple of days or it could be two weeks longer in ICU after this surgery. Sometimes, we were forewarned, the patient will take a step backwards in his recovery after the bone flap procedure. It’s not common, but it’s a possibility. Prior to the cat scan today, they gave him some morphine. He’s been sleeping since I got here around noon until now with about twenty minutes broken up in between of being awake. The respiratory therapist visited, put his voice plug in the tracheostomy, and tried to get Danny to speak, but he wasn’t into it at all. He told me yesterday that it’s painful and it’s harder to breath. He managed a whisper, but that was it for today. It’s been a slow day.

-Michelle