#5 My 23rd Birthday

My 23rd birthday will never be forgotten, though I feel like I skipped this birthday because I spent it in the hospital, my eyes swollen and my hands, legs and arms constricted by drainage contraptions. You see, when you are burned and have to have your skin grafted there are two main objectives, hydration and acceptance. Your body is constantly send water (ooz and puss) to the skin as healing properties in effort to save and accept the new skin. Because of this predicament I had to wear these large suction wraps on my hands that are kind of the same idea as the warming gloves you put your hands in when getting a manicure, except that they function nothing like that and are much less appealing to the eye. They were a poop brown color and make a sound like someone slurping through a straw all day and night. Humorous, but not pleasant.

On my birthday I was blessed with the appearance of many friends and family who, mostly, traveled to see me and to let me know they loved me. As I previously stated in a post, I reeked of burnt skin and hair, dried blood, and ooze; despite my aroma or appearance, every person who came to see me came close to say they loved me, missed me and were praying for me. Wow, talk about guardian angels and a shield of protection, on that day, in that moment, I felt joy in a moment of sadness, because of the blessings and gifts of my friends and family's presence I was able to experience that day. The Lord blessed every person that came in my room with a filter of emotion. I could not see distress, anguish or worry in anyone's eyes, though, now I know it was there. Now, as I talk to everyone who came to see me that day, they all say that despite my appearance I sounded like I hadn't missed a beat and they all thoroughly enjoyed being with me that day! When I think back on that day, I am in awe of the hand of God that was inside me lifting me up in front of friends and family to give them courage, understanding, peace, and, most importantly, hope. My friends and family all tell me how they could have never have imagined how terrible I looked that day when they came to see me, but as they laid their eyes upon me, I greeted every person with a smile, joy and tears. I cannot put into words how happy I was to see everyone that day and how much it meant to me to see their faces. I had been thinking about all of them as I had laid in that hospital bed, claiming that I would see all of their faces again, as I knew I was coming out of this dark cloud of pain.

Today, I am still waiting to rekindle those flames with my friends as they once were, but my healing is yet to be over. I will turn 24 in 1 month and 2 days and am still in recovery. 1 year ago I could have never imagined just how long it would be before I rekindled the flames of my friends as they used to be.

The fact of the matter is, those flames will never be as they were. Everyone is changing, moving, growing; each of us choosing different paths as we lead our lives separately, developing into the adults we have chosen and are willed to be. I thank God that I am not able to rekindle those flames as I am a changed person. God has changed me for the better. Shaping me by every incident, every breathe, every choice, every sin and every achievement for the kingdom into the woman I will forever be for Him.

Everyday there are those who live their lives as we are promised tomorrow and then there are those of us, the intelligent ones, that live our lives as though our next breathe is not guarnteed. I am thankful to my Father that he gives me my next breathe with every breathe I breathe, sometimes I need that next breathe to repent as I am by no means perfect, but never the less I am thankful. God placed a mission on my life at 16 years old to be a winner of souls for him. This testimony along with many others that I have conquered in my short lifetime are just the beginning of my mission. I look forward to the breathes that lie ahead and will forever more thank my Lord and Savior, my Father for smothering that fire so that 3 Christians on fire for God may tell the story to others as a testimony for the glory of His kingdom.

I am looking forward to my 24th birthday and am excited for what is in store for me in this upcoming year. I am thankful that I survived this past year and look forward to telling you just how I did that. I encourage each of you to take every breathe as a blessing, and count your blessings around you as your friends and family are gifts from God, cherish them and be thankful for them, be thankful for every breathe they breathe as well.

#4 Endurance

People had said that the man-made burn would be more painful than the ones from my accident. They were right. I did not imagine the magnitude of truth that their statements held.
The most painful experience of the hospital during the that two week stay was the changing of my graph-site garment on my right leg.

After the initial surgery, when they took skin from my leg and placed it on my arms and mended my face, they placed cheese cloth on my leg. The idea is that your skin forms a scab from the man-made burn the doctors make while grafting and then the cheese cloth will lift and fall off with the scab. It would have been ideal for the process to work like that, but of course it didn't.

This day was the "worst DAY of my life thus far."

It was my last week in the hospital and they still had not mastered my IV.  I was still too dehydrated. Regardless of my fatigue and dehydration my skin graft dressing had to be changed. The process of beginning to change the garment began early that morning with the attempt to give me pain killers orally. I appreciated that, though by the time the nurses made it to my room those were long gone.

At that point the nurses proceeded to change my dressing even though I told them I needed painkillers. I'm sure they hear that often! They began to rip the cheesecloth dried blood and scab off of my leg. I lost all composure at this point. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I couldn't help it! There was nothing I could do to keep my shrill in as I attempted to cover my own mouth, I continued to scream. The nurses couldn't even bare to do this to me. As one of the nurses began to cry, everyone of them stepped back from my bed and refused to proceed. They could clearly tell that I did, in fact, need some meds. I was completely coherent.

The nurses had tried everything to keep an IV in me, but nothing was working. As I held tight to my momma's hand, I was terrified. I did not know what was going to happen next. I knew the dressing had to be removed. The next thing I knew there was a man walking into my room. He was dressed as a doctor, and so I assumed he was, however, I knew he was not one of my doctors. I had not seen this man the entire time I had been there. I tensed up as he rapidly approached me with a determined look in his eye.

Before I knew it that determined man had me upside down, ninety degrees to the floor, and was sticking me in the neck with an IV, trying to avoid putting a central line in my chest. Come to find out, that determined doctor was the head Trauma doctor. Thankfully he was successful. It sure did hurt. I was grateful when the nurses came back for a second try at pulling off my dressings. The tearing off of that garment is my worst memory of my experience. The excruciating pain of removing that dressing made everyone tearful, even the second time. I just did not have enough medicine in me to wave the pain. I nearly passed out the second time and remember looking at my mom for relief as tears ran down her face. As I screamed my prayers to God for help and deliverance, my mom rubbed my right hand, while Alyssa held my left, and Alyssa's mom who had been there to visit several times, rubbed my hair. Everyone was trying to make it better for me, but there was nothing to do. I had to just get through it. Nurses from all over the floor continued to poor into my room in response to the whaling. As people came in and saw the looks on the burn team's faces changing my garments, their faces teary and red with anticipation, they looked at me with sympathy, and left.

All four of the burn team nurses apologized as they wiped their faces when they left the room. It was not their fault. They had a duty to do. And at my expense, they succeeded.

That day I learned the true meaning of endurance.

I remember in that moment of suffering asking my mom to sing to me in hopes of calming me for the remainder of the tearing and the look on her face matched the words that came out of her mouth, "what?". Afterwards, when the nurses had done their duty, mom looked at me and asked, "what's wrong with you? You wanted me to sing in a situation like that?" I looked back at her and remembering laughing with tears still rolling down my face. In that moment all I could think of was that I needed something to comfort me. Momma was all that came to my mind. I wanted to hear her voice. She always makes me feel better.

My mother was my saving grace throughout this whole process.

#3 Through all of the pain and agony, there was God

The next two weeks were, to this day, the two worst weeks of my life.

That night I was rushed into the hospital, still shirtless, and so dehydrated they could not get an IV in me. As I lay there in agony, dehydrated, oozing, and in severe pain I had never wanted my mother more. My mom was 4 hours away and due to a snow storm all of the roads had been closed. There I laid with the two firmen who brought me to the hospital and a male nurse, who, oddly enough, had no idea how to handle a bra. After, finally, removing my bra he pushed one of the cups inside the other, RUDE! That was my favorite bra, so I kindly gave him a quick lesson on how to put a woman's undergarments up properly. I am sure he will need to know one day! HA! The two firemen who had escorted me to the hospital would not leave my side until I was stable, needless to day, those poor men were there all night! The ER team finally got an IV in my foot to stick and stay at about 3am. Mind you, I arrived to the hospital a little before 7pm. Like I said, worst 2 weeks of my life began that night.

After I stabilized and stopped convulsively shaking, I finally got to see someone I knew, my Brandon. He stared at my swollen face and told me that I was just as beautiful as ever and that he knew everything was going to be ok. Once again I thought of those prolific words God had spoke through Alyssa, "I already prayed, and I know everything is going to be fine." Alyssa will never know how I held on to those words throughout those 2 weeks, and still am holding on to 11 months and 6 days later.

My mom, stepdad, Scot, sister, Tori, and brothers, Trey and Coby finally arrived the second day. I was so happy to see all of them. Today I know that they were all taken by surprise upon entering the room, even though Brandon had told them it was pretty bad. I would have never known that day! Every person that entered my room still entered as if I was just sick. God bless every soul that entered that room. I never knew how bad I looked until after leaving the hospital when I could look at a mirror myself.  My face was so swollen that I could not see. My hair stunk from being singed, yet every person that came into my room came straight to my bedside to tell me hi and they were praying, most people said they loved me, but not all :). This picture is my face after a week of being in the hospital, you can only imagine what I looked like to my visitors that saw me the first week. Yet this was before my right eyebrow fell off. At this point my eyebrow and hair was staying on my head due to the large amounts of vaseline that was on my face.

The two weeks that I was in the hospital were mostly a blur, partly because I was in such severe pain, partly because my mother and boyfriend kept me under with my morphine pump, and partly because my nurses continued to give me loratab, which I am highly allergic to, needless to say, these are painful memories.

God was with me and showed himself in various ways throughout my time there. One way that God comforted me with his presence was through my caretaker. God provided one of my very best friend's sister as my burn nurse. She was the person who would change by bandages, clean my burns, take out my stitches, dress my wounds every other day. I was so thankful for her. Her hands were like an angel's. I knew this was God's sign to me that he was with me. I had my bandages changed without medication the whole last week because of dehydration. I was SO thankful for her tenderness and care. Also because she was my best friend's sister, it was like having my friend with me in the most painful times.

I heard every day that child birth was going to be a complete breeze. I told them everyday, it better not be worse than this or I'll pass and just have Sasha for the rest of my life!

Apparently, when on pain killers Sasha and Brandon are all I talk about! By the time I left the hospital everyone knew I was a proud momma of a husky named Sasha Fierce.

She missed me for 2 months!

#2 The Lord works in mysterious ways

As I stood in the shower and stared in the mirror at my face, hands and arms, I thought to myself, what have I done. I kept asking Alyssa, who looked at me as if I looked perfectly normal, God bless her, "am I going to be okay?" "How bad is it?", even though I was looking in the mirror and could see how bad it was.

About that time, we could hear the sirens and I knew I had to get on some dry clothes. I was soaking wet and shaking. It had crossed my mind what Brandon would say or think. I actually thought, in my state of delusion, that there was a chance Brandon would not want to be with me if I looked like Freddy Krueger. Ridiculous, I know. That was the furthest thing from reality I came to realize. When Brandon made it back to the apartment Alyssa warned him that I was worried and scared. Calmly, Brandon entered the bathroom and said "Baby, what did you do?" he only words that would form were "I'm sorry." Brandon comforted me and told me everything was going to be fine and made a little joke in attempt to make the moment a little less painful. Alyssa and Brandon were helping me change into dry clothes when the fireman arrived.

I did not realize until that moment that the fire was out, gone, nothing but smut was left. Alyssa told me that while I was laying on the porch the a gust of cold winter wind blew through the apartment and put the fire out. God. There was no other word for it.

As the firemen poured into the apartment I was so ready to get to the hospital I walked right out of the bathroom without a shirt on and a towel draped over my shoulders, not a care in the world. The firemen asked me to sit down and asked me a million questions. The longer I sat, the worse my face and arms hurt. The warm air in the apartment was burning my open wounds. At that point I became hysterical. I was shaking furiously because of the pain. I wish I would have blacked out. I just kept repeating one statement over and over again until they finally did what I kept asking of them, "take me to the hospital!"

As I left the apartment, I kept reminding myself of one thing... Earlier as Alyssa was helping me get dressed I asked her to pray for me and she responded, I already have and you ARE going to be FINE. I asked the firemen in the the back of the rescue vehicle to pray for me as well. I knew the Lord was the only one who could save me.

I arrived at the hospital shirtless and boyfriendless, they did not let Brandon come with me because we were not married. I sure did miss him that night.

#1 Looking Back

Reflecting on that night, the night my life changed, I was not saved that night, thankfully I crossed that milestone many years ago in my life, I was awakened. I was awakened to realize true inner beauty, adrenaline, assurance of my faith, pain, the definition of family and friends, love, mercy, safety, sacrifice, fear, hope and, what I will always remember most, God's way of calming the storm.

On the night of January 9, 2011 my life was forever changed. I have forgotten the person I used to be as I am blinded by this moment that made me a better person, better child of God, stronger woman, and changed my perspective on life in a matter of seconds. I had recently moved into a new apartment as I began to cook my very first meal in my little kitchen. As I began to cook dinner, we were having steaks and french fries, I chatted with my roommates over the counter. I was letting the grease heat up on medium, as we were in no hurry, when Brandon, my boyfriend (I will talk about him a lot. He's the best!), left to walk down to on-site laundry facility to finish a load we had previously put in the wash. Not a minute after he walked out of the door, I was still talking to my roommates, the pot of grease simply bursts into flames. Singing my face and hair, the cabinets above the stove immediately caught on fire. My baking soda and salt were above the stove, growing up that is where my mother had always kept them. We didn't have much cabinet space in the tiny apartment. I knew better than to throw water on a grease fire. And there I was burning, yet calm and collective as my kitchen was engulfed in flames.  I calmly and, thinking back, subtly put myself out. I simply took my bare hands and wiped the flames out. There was no fire extinguisher to be found in the apartment or out of the apartment. At this moment I found courage within myself, I had no idea I possessed.

Chris, one of my roommates had opened the door to let all of the smoke out and I grabbed a towel and oven mit and put the pot outside. After getting the burning pot of grease out of the apartment, I finally realized I was burnt and my skin was still sizzling. I went into the kitchen and with a gallon pitcher filled refilled and threw on the flames in the kitchen until I could no more. I suddenly could not stand the pain any longer, I yelled for my roommate to get me out of the kitchen. The hallway was the way out of the kitchen, it was also where the front door was located and was still on fire. While, Alyssa, my other roommate continued to panic, Chris pulled my over the kitchen counter and into the living room where the fire had not yet reached.

At this point I was realizing just how bad the circumstances were, as I laid on the back porch in the snow, attempting to cool off with the door cracked enough to converse with Alyssa but not wide open as we did not want the fire in the hall to spread, I yelled and yelled for Brandon, he was still at the on-site laundry facility. As I laid there and Alyssa called 911, I was beginning to become frightened. The series of events was coming back to me and, though I knew I had done the right thing by doing my best to put out the fire, I was afraid of what was to come because of my actions. The apartment was still on fire. The fire department was on their way.

By the time the fire department got to my apartment I had made my way from the back porch to the shower. I put cold water on my skin and watched layers and layers sluff off of my arms. As I stood in the shower with my clothes on, the curtain open and the cold water hitting me, my face and arms could not feel the cool temperature they were still burning. As I starred into the mirror my face continued to get brighter and brighter red and my arms were as white as the snow I had laid on earlier. And I started to panic, partly because my skin was clogging up the drain, partly because I was afraid I was going to look like Michael Jackson and mostly because I was uncertain of what was to come.