by Kerry Harris | Apr 28, 2017 |
Dorothy was right, there is no place like home! They kicked us out yesterday. We were in our cars and heading home by 12:30 pm. Well, two of us were heading home, the other had to go to the pharmacy and pick up some pain meds. I think we all took a big sigh of relief when we walked in the door. I know that two of us slept like it was our job last night.
We have only been home 32 hours, so we haven’t quite adjusted to the new normal yet, but we are not in Kansas anymore Toto! 1. Sam tried to do too much once he walked over the threshold. He made himself food, rinsed out the bathtub in his old room (even though it had been cleaned), rearranged some stuff, etc. Let’s just say by 4pm he was laying on the couch in quite a bit of pain. 2. The tub at the hospital is way bigger than the tub in his bathroom. He managed though and may have a future as a contortionist in the circus. 3. I miss the never ending supply of clean linens and how they magically appear at the hospital. I also miss housekeeping cleaning the debridement tub. I have done 4 loads of linens and cleaned two different tubs, two times each. (We moved treatment to my jacuzzi tub today so he could actually submerge his entire body at one time.) My hands are chapped from cleaning supplies and the constant washing. 4. We miss the nurses. I have one patient and I was still late giving meds today. I don’t know how they handle multiple patients.
With all that being said, there is still no place like home, as you can tell by all the smiles in the picture above. We have so much to be thankful for. We have slept, showered and been stuffed with food brought to us by dear friends. Sam still has a long way to go but we are amazed at how much better the burns look each day. Half his face and neck are still red and peeling, but he no longer has to have his head wrapped in dressings. You can’t see the red in the picture because that side of his face is in a shadow. The under side of his right arm, torso and left leg needs to be wrapped and all or some may required skin grafts, but he is alive and has all his appendages. He is back home, a very different person then when we asked him to move out. (A story for another blog post.) After 3 years of living on his own, he has to live with us for a while, which is hard for him, but he knows it’s best. If he listens to the doctor, changes his dressings, debride’s as instructed, and eats, he will be back to work and at his house in no time. All he has to do is follow the yellow brick road.
by Kerry Harris | Apr 26, 2017 |
This is hopefully the last post sitting in room 165. At least for now. Sam is no longer on IV pain meds, thanks to the Soup Nazi of trauma doctors…….”No soup for you!” And today when his IV blew again, then fell out of his arm temporarily, before Sam pushed it back in, (OUCH!) they called the Dr. and ordered an oral antibiotic. Then he was given the choice of going home today or waiting until tomorrow and getting in two more debridements. He asked if he could do one more here today then go home, but Nurse Kristen and I both said that would be very late night. So he chose to stay until tomorrow and go home after his morning treatment. He is not out of the woods yet. There still could be a skin graft on his under arm or his torso or both. The leg has improved so for now I’m leaving it off the list but praying none the less. He will have to return once a week to the burn clinic on Tuesday’s and continue to see Dr. Biabek, but for now they are confident he can recover safely at home in the Harris Hospital.
I won’t go as far to say that we will miss St. V’s. As I said before, nobody wants to be here. What I will miss is the the nursing staff. They have walked with us from the beginning of this journey. Comforting, encouraging and cheering us on. Not just Sam, but Jeff and I too. They knew when to hold our hands, say calming words or push us to try a wound dressing. They told us what would happen now and prepared us for what was coming next. They were never short tempered or put out by a question or concern. No nurse Ratchets in this bunch.
Here is what I won’t miss. The 1st floor waiting room by the elevator. We pass by it when we arrive or leave. When we go down to the cafeteria for a meal or to the coffee shop. Every time, it is full of people. 24 hours a day for the last 7 days. It was a mystery to me. Who are these people? What is their story? St. Vincent’s is not in the best area of town so I even wondered if these were people that just needed a safe place to sleep. But Saturday night, when I left about midnight, it seemed to be especially busy in there. I was standing waiting by the elevator when I noticed a circle of people in one corner holding hands with their heads bowed. Then I heard one of them speak. “Lord, please don’t let him die!” It knocked the wind right out of me. We have a friend that works as a chaplain here. Don happened to stop in on Monday and so I asked about the 1st floor waiting room. He told me these are the friends and family of patients in the ICU and Critical Care Units. He said many of these patients are touch and go and that waiting room is constantly full. 24/7, constantly full.
On our first full day here, last Thursday, my sweet friend Rachael came up with my other friend Melissa. It was the first time she had been back at this hospital since losing her step-dad, Jim, about two months ago. It was obvious that she had been crying when she came into the room and she said she just passed the hall where Jim had been. Later she started texting me about all the construction in the hospital and how she used to walk the empty halls to get her steps in. She even joked that she may have tested some of the empty beds that are waiting for their first patients since the remodel. It wasn’t until I took one of her suggested walks and passed the waiting room that it dawned on me. Rachael, her mom Joanie and their families, were one of those people waiting to hear about their loved one in that waiting room. They prayed for him to recover, just like I heard the women pray on Saturday night. Unfortunately Jim didn’t make it. Jim went home to be with Jesus and is no longer here. The people in the 1st floor waiting room are no longer a mystery to me. That circle of people praying have names. They are Rachael, Joanie, Jarmen, Grace, Hannah, Norah and Will. They got a phone call, much like ours. They need prayers, comfort and care, while they are here and after they leave that waiting room on the 1st floor.
by Kerry Harris | Apr 25, 2017 |
Today was very much the same as the previous six days with one major exception……a tentative release day was mentioned. Thursday or Friday! So excited and at the same time terrifying. Dr. Biabak (Plastics) was in today and he is pleased with the progress in the debridement tub. Yesterday Sam worked on his face so he no longer any kind of dressing on his head. All that is dressed now are his right arm, torso and shoulder, along with his left leg. He instructed one of our favorite nurses, Rockstar Holly, to start teaching us to dress the wounds. Actually, he told her to have all the nurses teach us but Sam said Holly should be the one. So the training and video recording began after he got out. (We have watched almost every one of his dressing changes but we haven’t done one ourselves.) Holly also started loading us up with supplies to bring home ahead of time. Jeff walked out of here tonight looking like Santa Claus.
Here is the bad news. With a release day coming, they stopped using the IV fentanyl during debridements. This is good because Sam won’t have an IV at home, but bad because the first time they told him he wouldn’t be getting it was when he was in the tub. To make matters worse, pain meds got off schedule today because there was miscommunication of when Dr. Biabek would be coming. They try to give his pain meds to him 30 minutes before treatment when the Dr. calls and tell them he is on his way. They thought he was coming before his 8:30am clinic but he didn’t come until after at 11. That put him 3 hours past his scheduled meds time so he was in quite a lot of pain by the time he got in the tub. Then SURPRISE, No IV pain meds for you! He handled it like a champ but was disappointed because if he had known last night they were discontinuing the meds today, he would have worked harder on those spots under his arm and torso that may still need a skin graft. Without the “extra” pain relief he was less aggressive scrubbing those spots. Hopefully the 2nd debridement tonight will go well and his new wound dresser, moi, will not hurt him!
Sam and his friend Devon took a stroll down the hall today and stopped at Derrick’s room. He is the BGSU student that was stabbed on Saturday night. They stayed for several minutes and got the story of what happened. Apparently it was a roommate disagreement that was earlier in the evening. They settled the quarrel and Derrick went out with some buddies thinking all was ok. The stabber tracked him down, waited until his friends were gone, put his arm around him and stabbed him in the middle of the dance floor. Sam and Devon came back to the room, looked the guys mug shot up, and both said they have seen him around town. A while later his mother Sue tracked me down in the kitchen just to tell me how impressed she was with Sam. She said he was so encouraging and kind to come check on Derrick. He was trying to get him to eat some food and offered to share what we brought from home. She was in awe of Sam’s compassion when it’s obvious how bad his wounds are. We compared notes on our two boys and it seems they have both had similar detours in the road. Then we talked about the stabbers mother and how she was doing. Even though our boys are hurt, they will recover. This other boy has made a decision that will, most likely, put him behind bars. The entire situation weighs heavy on my heart. I’m praying for Derrick and his family but I’m also praying for the stabber and his mother who received a very different phone call than we did.
Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton! Not the broadway Hamilton but the old fashioned soda shop kind………..There are not many perks to being in the hospital and even less in the burn unit, but this baby pictured above is one of them. Our first day here I spotted this beauty even in my dazed and confused fog. It is a Vintage Hamilton Beach Triple 3-Head Milkshake Malt Mixer. Burn victims require, at least, double the calories and as much protein as you can force into them. Because of this we are constantly trying to feed Sam. Unfortunately, with the meds and the pain he has not had an appetite. I told him that before he leaves here he had to have a milkshake, just so I could get my hands on that machine. Today was the day! He said he would have one if his Dad had one too. Jeff, being the good Dad that he is, sacrificed himself. His girlfriend, Taylor and I, also fell on the sword and took one for the team! We used the Deitsch’s moose tracks for the guys and Chocolate for the girls. Sam was even trying to talk Derrick into one. I’m thinking this needs to go home in our supply back tomorrow.
by Kerry Harris | Apr 25, 2017 |
This wasn’t how I planned to start my blogging journey, but we plan and God laughs. Or in my case, we put it off and God gives us something to write about. And so the journey begins…….with a phone call.
Wednesday 4/19 was a, somewhat, emotional day to begin with. I spent a good portion of the day, with a friend, cleaning my cousin’s house in preparation for her to come home from an extended stay at Cleveland Clinic where she has been fighting MDS (Myelodysplastic syndrome). I’ll write more about my amazing cousin Renee in another post, but let’s just say her wicked sense of humor has kept us in stitches our entire lives. Anyway, I had a shower and was having my own little pity party when Jeff left for practice at church. An hour and a half later we received the phone call that every parent fears………”Mom, I had an accident at work and I’m in an ambulance on the way to St. V’s.” All I heard from that point on were the sirens in the background.
I’m not even sure if he told me that he had been burned or if I just knew when I heard St. V’s. They are one of the top four burn units in the country. If you have a burn in this area, this is where they take you and this is where you want to be! Let’s rephrase that……….nobody wants to be here, but you get the idea. A big huge thanks to the City of Bowling Green Fire and Rescue for not messing around and recognizing the severity of his wounds. They didn’t even attempt to take him to another hospital and they broke every speed law known to man to get him here. The only person that was ahead of them on the expressway was Jeff, who managed to beat the ambulance. (He was about 5 minutes closer than I was since he was at practice at church. There is a funny story to this that I will tell at another time.)
I won’t go into detail at this point about his injuries or how it happened but what I will say is he has mostly 2nd degree burns, and some 1st degree, over 15-20% of his body. It is predominately on the right, upper half of his body and face. It was a fryer full of grease that exploded and Sam’s reflex was to raise his right arm and shield his face as he turned so there is also a spot on his back left calf. The majority of the impact was taken under his right arm and torso. Those burns may turn into 3rd degree and required skin grafts. We hope not, but burns develop more over time and they are also prone to infection, especially if you are dealing with grease because it’s very dirty. We have seen this first hand as he developed an infection on the back of his arm and his leg and is being treated with IV antibiotics.
We have learned so much about burns and how the body heals. First, blistering happens because the body is saying “hey that spot needs moisture.” Second, the degree of burn is based on how deep you’re burned, whether the burns blister and how many layers of skin are damaged. This can’t be determined right away because it continues to burn for a while. The degree can also change based on infection. Third, you have to get the dead skin off and they way you do that is debridement. Look it up…….. yep, its bad, it’s painful, and it’s awful. And Sam is handling it like a champ! He is so tough. There is no quick fix for any of this. It’s not like a broken bone that you can cast and will be healed in 6 weeks. Diagnosis is a waiting game and so is treatment, determined by how his body responds. And recovery is a long process, based on age, health, if he is a smoker (working on that), infection, if skin grafts are needed, and how many calories and protein he eats. The one bonus to a burn is you can eat anything you want. The higher the protein and calorie count the better! Of course you’re in so much pain you don’t want to eat and hospital food isn’t the best. We have managed to get some of his favorites brought in from friends and family. For now there is no discharge date, we just wait.
The first several hours here were scary and surreal. There were so many things going on and so many different doctors and nurses asking us questions and giving us information. It was overwhelming and exhausting. As the days go on you fall into a new normal. You no longer sit and stare at your child in the bed 24/7. You walk down the hall and get a drink, maybe venture to the cafeteria to pick up food. As the comfort level grows, you go to the cafeteria and eat at a table. You’re not hungry and you don’t taste the food but you eat because you know you have to. At some point you go home and take a shower and try to straighten up the life you abruptly left when the phone rang. You may even sleep in your own bed. Not a restful sleep but it’s not in a plastic recliner or a love seat the pulls out into a medieval torture device that is supposed to be a bed. You push through and function the best you can because what other choice do you have? Your kid needs you. I was doing one of those “new normal’s” on Sunday as I ventured down the hall for a drink. I passed a kid in the hall that looked about Sam’s age. I overheard him tell the aid he was 22 and a student at BGSU. Then I saw his parents in his room. I didn’t know them but I knew them. They were us three days before. Scared, dazed, confused, overwhelmed and exhausted. I smiled at them and they half smiled back. I asked if it was their first day. They said “We got a phone call at midnight that our son had been stabbed.” That’s how their journey began, with a phone call.
