Blu's left hind leg was injured -complete with 4" of exposed bone - on December 1, 1997.

On January 23, 1998, the injury was healed sufficiently to start the first skin graft.

	The leg was prepared for the skin graft. Trimming made the area more cosmetically correct, and exposed a fresh surface of granulation for the skin grafts. There are no "nerves" in the new growth, and no local anesthetic was required during the trimming. The leg was snugly wrapped with ample gauze and other absorbent materials. After a day's wait for the bleeding to stop, the actual harvest and grafting of skin occurred.
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The skin graft process used here is called the "pinch" method. There are other methods. An area elsewhere on the body was selected for "harvesting" the skin to transplant. In this case the belly area was chosen. That area is unobtrusive and provided both the white (pink skin) and sorrel (dark skin) areas required for the graft to the injured leg. Blu was tranquilized to ensure she remain calm and quiet. A network of many little pockets were cut in the leg area. The harvest area was shaved and cleaned, and a local anesthetic injected. Small sections of skin were pinched and removed, or "harvested". The harvest area later looked rather like a shotgun pattern, with small pellet-sized holes where skin had been removed.
The tiny "plugs" of harvested skin were tucked into the pockets in the leg - similar in concept to starting a plant cutting - with the hope that each tiny piece of skin would "take root" and grow. The leg was then securely wrapped, hoping to keep the plugs of skin undisturbed. The padded wrapping remained in place for 7 days. Blu remained confined to her stall to reduce movement of that leg.

	The vet expected 4 weeks to pass before any real results could be observed. On February 13, 1998, after only 3 weeks, it was apparent that perhaps 75% of the grafts had successfully taken. More typical is 50%, so we're quite pleased by both the speed of the process as well as the succes rate. Tiny hairs were visible over much of the grafted area. Soon it can be more accurately determined which areas did / did not take the skin graft. The skin graft process will be repeated to fill any areas where it appears the first grafting process failed.
Blu was rather exuberant about having a few hours of turnout after spending 3 weeks confined to a stall! The wrapping that appeared to work quite well immediately after the skin graft included a section of quilted wrap and a "pillow" wrap for extra padding. (Later the "pillow" wrap layer was eliminated.) The next layer was vet wrap, which was covered completely with a wide, stretchy adhesive tape for additional protection.
See Skin Graft #2