February 6, 2007 12:04am

First let me start by saying thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers! You are an amazing group of family & friends! All those who have posted comments have really made us feel good.

Not long after my last post, we were allowed up to see Presley. We got into the PICU and there was our baby boy! He was sound asleep in a giant cage of a crib. With the swelling starting, the position he was in, and the change in his orbital ridge, it was hard to believe it was Presley. But, what a sight! Words can't begin to describe the emotions!

After spending time staring at Presley in amazement, one of the neurosurgeons that participated in the surgery arrived. He explained how well everything went and about the process they went through. He was very happy with how the symmetry of Presley's face was achieved.

The plastic surgeon arrived to check in later in the afternoon. He went through his part of the procedure, and gave me more updates on what to expect and how pleased he was with the results. I have to say, I felt a much softer side of him then the visit to his office. It was very reassuring.

Presley has been doing much better than we expected at this point. He's on a combination of oxycodone and morphine. The oxycodone is used to maintain a level of comfort, while the morphine is used less often for the intense breakthrough pain as it comes. He woke up a few times and didn't appear to be in too much pain. He did take a bottle early in the evening, although he only drank about half of it. They are currently watching his fluids because he is a bit puffy and isn't peeing. They were going to increase his fluids to try and ensure his body is getting what it needs. If he doesn't pee by himself, they will most likely end up putting in a catheter to help things along. For those of you who think this sounds painful, I can attest to the fact that it's not that bad when you are on morphine.

Presley did require more blood then I mentioned in my previous post. He used 50% of the blood donated by Dana. They are monitoring his blood to determine if he will need an additional transfusion post surgery. At around 2:30pm, he was right on the line of needing it, but they decided to give him a little time. As of an hour ago, he still had not needed it.

We are thankful for where we are in the process. Presley still has a long way to go before he is 100%. His face will continue to swell for the next several days, supposedly peaking on day 3. His eyes will most likely swell shut, so we will remain close to him and try to comfort him with our voices.

I've added some pictures of Presley, post-op, to the images page. Feel free to browse them, but I feel I must tell you that they are not very cheery. I've also restructured the pages to give them a little better flow.

I'll continue to write and post images as the weeks progress.

Again, we can't thank you enough for your prayers!