Day 7

Because of Mark's restful night and stable CT scan he was able to go into surgery this morning for the fractures on his face. Dr. Cook said he put in quite a bit of titanium in his face. He has 4 screws under his left eye and 6 screws above his eye. He placed a 'Y' shaped plate on the bottom portion of his cheek bone. He said that when he starting putting things together, all the "puzzle pieces" came together fluidly. He was able to go in under his top lip and through the crease in his eyelid, so he will have no visible scars from this surgery. He does have some long sutures from his lower eyebrow to his eyelashes which I have no answer for, and the sutures in the crease of his eyelid are so small that I can't even see them. Dr. Cook said he is pleased with everything.

While the doctor was in there the thought occurred to him that maybe his eye was so swollen that it had wedged itself into the eye socket. He was able to loosen it and thinks the nerves have not been damaged beyond repair. We're praying that he will regain use of his left eye. He has an ice pack against his cheek, but so far has no visible swelling. That could come later.

His white blood count was elevated before the surgery and a little more afterwards. They are running a blood culture to find out why. The respiratory therapist pulled some goo from his chest this morning to analyze it for the possibility of pneumonia. His initial reaction was that it did have some white blood cells in it, but it didn't look too bad.

Overall, Mark is doing pretty good. When the trauma doctor pinched him yesterday to check his reflexes, Mark yanked his left arm up like he was going to punch him. I tell myself that my Mark is in there and exhibiting his usual self. We all had a good laugh.