And we're back. . .

. . .in the hospital again! We went in for Evan's cast change this morning and when they removed his left cast they found that one of the incisions had opened and some of the skin surrounding it had "leathered" and died. The wound had to be irrigated and the dead skin removed and he is undergoing "wound vac" therapy (there is a "sponge" covering the wound that is attached to a long tube, attached to a machine. . the sponge basically sucks the impurities out of the tissue and helps create healthy tissue so that the wound can heal properly). He is also being treated with IV antibiotics. He will probably be here for AT LEAST 2-3 days while he is on IV antibiotics. We could potentially go home with the wound vac equipment and have a home nurse come to the house each day, but I think his doctor is currently leaning towards keeping him here until he is done with the wound vac therapy (this would likely be a week or more). Once the wound vac is done he will have to have "wet dressings" applied and changed daily (this will likely be done at home by a home nurse). He currently has a short, orange cast (he wanted to look like Nemo this time around) on his right foot and a soft splint covered by an ace bandage on his left. I am very glad that we made the decision to do this cast change under anesthesia as the doctors were able to take care of everything very quickly and efficiently. I am hoping that we might be able to get out of here sooner rather than later. . . but we do kind of have a bad track record as far as that is concerned! While being admitted today caught me completely off guard, the complication did not come as a complete surprise. We knew it was a possibility before he even went into surgery, so we are rolling with the punches and are grateful that it was caught quickly and is being treated.

We should know a little more over the next few days and I will update as the information rolls in. Evan is doing fairly well. I think he is pretty frustrated that he is stuck in bed, hooked up to monitors and IV's, once again, but he is still cracking jokes and smiling so he is hanging in there! For the past week or so he has slowly regained his appetite and I was worried that he might regress again after this cast change, but he actually came out of anesthesia asking for pancakes and cookies (surprise) and has already polished off 5 pancakes, 4 cookies and a small box of cereal (and 5 cups of apple juice as well), so I don't think we will have to worry about his appetite waning this time around!

Stayed tuned. . .I will try my best to keep things updated.