Josh went to surgery at 7:00am and returned to his room at 3:00pm. The doctors did not come talk to us. The nurse told us that he had a rotational muscle flap rather than a free flap. They inserted an epidural for pain management with a PCA unit for him to dispense medication as needed.
From what I understand from talking to the Dr. from plastic surgery, they used two muscles, the soleus muscle, and the gastrocnemius muscle by moving them over to cover the tibia bone. They said that it is not always possible to perform this type of muscle flap due to injury to the blood vessels. He did not lose a lot of tissue and he has a good healthy blood supply so the surgery went well. The doctor said that they took some of the skin from his upper left leg to graft over the open wounds. He has a bio-degradable covering on the site where they harvested his healthy skin. They said that it will take about five days of careful monitoring before they will know if the graft is taking.
Josh has been sleeping all day following the surgery. he had an epidural inserted where anesthetic drugs are delivered to his lower extermities. Unfortunately, the tube shifted and he is getting more numbing on his good right side than he is on his injured left side.
I hope tomorrow he is feeling more himself and back to making baskets with his little tape balls and mini sports balls. 🙂 Stay tuned!