The Morning After

After ICU, Neurosurgery, and Plastics rounds, we have time now for a brief update, especially to thank all of Forrest's followers for your support, prayers, messages, and blog comments of love and encouragement.  

Considering Forrest was in the OR yesterday for almost 15 hours and underwent 12 hours of surgery, he is doing remarkably well. The surgeons are quite pleased with the outcome.  This morning one of the surgical fellows who assisted Dr. Kumar described the procedure as an "elegant" piece of reconstructive surgery! 

It's difficult to get any rest in ICU, but Forrest made it through the night under the watchful eye of Johns Hopkins' finest nurses and his own personal guardian angel, Nurse Dawn.  His breathing tube came out at 4 AM and his stats are all looking good.  The vessels supplying circulation to the full flap graft are being monitored hourly with Doppler and the perfusion at the critical 12 hour milestone is good.  There's quite a bit of the swelling as would be expected, but Forrest is able to open his eyes partially and acknowledge us. 

He has given his doctors a semblance of his characteristic thumbs up.  We are back to using one finger for yes and two fingers for no for now,  which is fine.  We doubt that he has anything positive to say just yet, but we are all eagerly awaiting  his first words! 

Toliver is clearly telling us how thrilled he is to see Forrest, exuberantly wagging his whole rear end while he gently places his head on Forrest's hospital bed and looks up at him with adoring eyes.  

For now the main objective is for Forrest to rest, give the flap time to settle into it's new home, and  the swelling to subside. 

We will remain at his bedside watching the monitors and reading him your comments and messages.  Many thanks for your love, faith, and support.

Mum