Journal entry by Stephanie Dunn —
Well, for the first time in 4 1/2 weeks, I feel like I can exhale. It’s been a very long month waiting for the BTM to attach to Teylor‘s leg. There have been a lot of hiccups in the care of Teylor with her wound VAC and BTM site, but she took it all in stride and has taken very good care of her leg. Since the wound VAC wasn’t placed two days after returning home, like it was supposed to be, Teylor’s wound care consisted of cleaning the area daily and applying gauze that had been soaked in a bleach solution over her open wound. And, of course, she did this without pain medication. 😬 She also had to keep it on mobilized the entire time.
She didn’t even miss going on spring break to Arizona with a group of friends. 🚗 Yeah, she wasn’t able to do the hikes, pickleball, swimming, or any of the physical activities, but she had a blast! And she took care of her leg.
She met me in Salt Lake City and had her skin graft yesterday. 🥺 Dr. Lewis said everything went very well. She asked Teylor where she would like her to take the donor skin from. Teylor asked if she could take it from her right thigh so she only has to wear compression on one leg. She was able to keep the donor sight on Tey's right leg, but she had to take it from the back of her thigh. She said the BTM looked very very good. Absolutely no infection. She was able to stitch the graft on and didn't need to use staples at all. 🙌🏻
They did a 1:1 graft. With all her other grafts they did 4:1. That ratio is donor skin to area covered. 4:1 is as high as you can go. So it literally is a slab of her skin cut to the size of the area to cover. They did not make a mesh out of it at all.
They have a wound VAC hooked up and they won't take that off for two days. The best thing about that is that she will not have wound care until then. 😅
When Dr. Lewis came out to tell me how the surgery went and what things will look like going forward, she was explaining that it is a much smaller area so she should be able to heal much quicker. She said Teylor will do it just fine "in true Teylor style. " 🥰
Her first nurse was a new, young nurse. Her name is Taylor. She said that everyone told her, “Teylor is the easiest and nicest patient.” She said, “you are well loved by everyone here.” ….And she is in Becky’s room. 💜
When she woke up, she was in quite a bit of pain. The majority of her pain comes from the donor site on her thigh. This was expected though. There are still nerves in that area because she was not burned there. In the past, the donor has always given her more pain than The grafted site. She took one round of narcotics and then decided that she didn’t want to do anymore. She is now only taking Tylenol and ibuprofen. 💪🏻
She is nonweightbearing on her leg so they are having her just lay low for now. Physical Therapy came in to check on her, but they said they will not start anything until after her first takedown. They will evaluate and see exactly how long they want her to stay in. So we will just hang out for a couple of days and wait and see!
We are so grateful for everyone’s love and support. She had a few visitors today, and that was great to get her mind off of where she is!🤍
#TeylorTough
#FaithNotFear
#PrayForTey
TeylorTough.org
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