#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.