January Surgery: Part 1

Sorry this is coming so late, but the last week has been crazy plus my internet was out.

Ronnie had part one of his surgery on Thursday, January 12th on his right hand and right knee. Even though he was nervous about the surgery, he was excited too. This surgery is the one that could potentially help him turn another corner. It will allow his hand to be even more usable and help his walking to be much less painful, things he is very much looking forward too. On Thursday early afternoon, after the blessing of many friendly visits, Ronnie went into surgery. The surgery took a total of 5 hours, but had good results. In his hand, they made several incisions to open up his palm and allow his thumb to have more movement. They put metal pins into his thumb joints to temporarily hold his hand open. They also did several z-plasties on his fingers and wrist. On his knee, they excised a large portion of chronically open skin on the back of his knee and made a large incision going the whole circumference. The incisions allowed a large release of tension that Dr. L thinks may even help the stretching of his torso. They pinned the skin down and put integra (a pseudo skin) over the opening. Two wound vacs were attached to his knee. They also put integra and a wound vac on his hand.
After the surgery, Ronnie was in quite a bit of pain for the first couple days. It took a while to get on a pain management system that worked for both during the day and at night. He went back into the OR on Tuesday morning to do his first dressing change under anesthesia. The doctor was very impressed with the progress and even decided to remove the wound vacs! Today is Friday... just over a week after his surgery. They are doing a bed side dressing change today and then Ronnie will be allowed to come home until the first week of February when they do part 2 of the surgery (filling in with skin grafts).
We have been so blessed throughout this hospital stay in so many ways. I think this is the first surgery he has had since we have really established ourselves here in San Antonio. We have felt so loved on and encouraged over the last week. Ronnie has had a constant flow of visitors (and snacks!) from church and elsewhere to keep him company as well as lovely bouquets of flowers from our churches both here in San Antonio and at home. We are truly blessed and we thank God for that every day.