The Revelation: July 27th, 2004

7/27/2004
We're home to Columbus for a few hours to get more clothes & things, then I'm back to Cleveland, while Bonnie stays behind to keep her business and our house going. Many, many thanks for the several dozen messages that I found waiting from Daily Drool friends, both old and new. The messages mean a lot to Bonnie and me. A quick update on our daughter Nicole...

Nikki is our youngest daughter (age 25), and has been working in Cleveland since October to help open the new Cheesecake Factory there as the head bartender. Friday morning at 2am, while driving home, Nikki somehow hit the back of a tractor trailer in her 2002 Dodge Neon. Her car exploded on impact, sliding under the trailer and becoming lodged there. She was dragged for some distance before the trailer could pull over. Several people stopped to help remove Nikki from the burning car, pinned underneath the trailer. She was life-flighted to Cleveland's MetroHealth Medical Center, a Level 1 Trauma Center.

The bad news.... Nikki has uncounted broken bones in her face. From the upper lip to her eyebrows is broken. She had a couple of large lacerations there, which were stitched. She has 1st & 2nd degree burns around her face and scalp, which don't appear to be disfiguring, although she has a good chance of losing her right ear. Most serious are her 3rd degree burns, covering 45% of her body, mostly on her back and the backs of her arms and legs. The best guess is that her car seat was burning, with her trapped in it. Nikki is relying on a respirator to help her to breathe. She is not comatose, but is very fuzzy, due to high levels of pain medication and relaxants. She is in critical, but stable condition.

The good news.... Nikki has been alive for four days now. Internally, she's fine... heart, lungs, kidneys and liver are functioning normally. Her brain has checked out fine through two CT scans. Her spine and neck appear OK, and she has no broken bones, other than the face. She started reconstructive surgery today, with a 5 hour grafting procedure on her back. Burned, dead tissue was excised down to the living tissue- which happened to be muscle, meaning that all layers of skin were destroyed. Cadaver / donor skin was placed over these areas, which were very large. This donor skin will be rejected in 2 - 3 weeks, but should give her tissues some protection and prepare the area for proper skin grafting later.

On Wednesday, traditional grafting will be done on her arms, right upper chest and legs. Tissue from the front of her legs and her abdomen will be grafted onto the newly-excised burn areas. If she tolerates this well, on Thursday the facial surgeons will peel her face down below her nostrils & attempt to repair all of the damage there in one large procedure. On Friday, yet more grafting is planned. Then, a week or so of recuperating and re-evaluating. Afterwards, more surgeries, for some time to come. Each of the surgeries this week will involve a great deal of blood loss- up to 10 units of blood will be available for each procedure.

You can see that Nikki has a rough time ahead of her. In her case, 'Critical' certainly means near-death, and she's not out of the woods. She will be hospitalized in Cleveland for at least 2 months, then transferred to a rehab center here in Columbus. After that, she'll be living with us, until she's able to be on her own again.Many thanks again for the kind thoughts and many messages. We'll be keeping all of these to share with Nikki at a later time. Your caring makes a big difference to us.