Those first fourteen days were very difficult to cope with. It wasn’t just the physical pain, but there was an awful lot of emotional pain as well. I worried about a lot of things during those long lonely nights on the 7th floor. What was I going to look like when I got out of this place? Would my nose ever look normal? Would it need surgery? The right side of my face was so thick with scabs I wondered if it would ever heal and if it did, what would be underneath this black crust that seemed to be a part of me now? What would my hands look like when they were completely healed? Would I even be able to use them? And what about my legs? Would they ever look like they did before? Would I ever stop hurting? Would this pain ever go away? I part of me knew that I would never be the same girl again. My looks were very important to me especially being a young woman, and now everything had changed. I felt ugly. That was something that I never really experienced before. Sure there were days when I would feel ugly, because of a blemish or a bad hair day, but now I truly felt revolting looking.

       I tried to look at the bright side of my situation. How fortunate that none of us had broken any bones or had any other injuries from the crash. No one was killed. How did we get so lucky? None of us were wearing seat belts, and were hit by not one, but two cars. What saved us from flying out of the car? Also I was surprised I was not hit by another car as I rolled in the street. Douglas Rd was a fairly busy street and another car could have easily hit me. After asking myself these questions I felt somewhat lucky I suppose. Things could have been a lot worse. My parents could have been planning and attending a funeral instead of spending the majority of their time visiting me in a hospital burn unit.

        I was missing school and my friends. I felt so out of touch with the world. This was my senior year, and I had already missed out on so much. The Homecoming Dance, powder puff, football games, pep sessions and assemblies, cheerleading and not to mention all of my friends and classes. This was supposed to be one of the best times of my life and I was missing out on all of it. I cried a lot. I guess it was my way to release all of my stress. I was a pretty popular girl, and I was good-looking and now my whole world was turned upside down. I wanted to go back to that night so bad and do everything differently. If only I would of just gone home with my parents. Or if only I had not wanted to go to that party. Or if only I would of seen Cheryl and gotten a ride with her. But I realized that I couldn’t do that to myself because life is made of choices and you cannot undo what has already been done. I just wished that I could have gone back and done everything differently. I asked myself a lot of questions like "why me?" Doesn’t everyone do that at some point or another in their lives? So I kept asking myself, "why me", and the same answer kept coming back to me. Why not me? I am not different than anythone else. There are people everyday who endure misfortune and pain. I was no exception. I talked to God a lot too. I was searching for answers, for the reason I had to go through this. I am not sure if they were apparant for me then.

       The burn unit had become my home now. I actually began to learn to like it there since I didn’t have any other choice. The nurses seemed to be getting nicer to me although I suppose that it was because I was feeling a little bit better and was being nicer to them myself. The pain was still very dreadful, but the dressing changes on my legs were cut down to only two times a day, which was really pleasing.

       I finally was allowed to take a real bath instead of the usual sponge baths. That was some experience. Here I thought it would be relaxing and feel really good, but boy was I wrong. A stainless steel tub was wheeled into my room from the tubing area before my morning dressing change. Some of the dressings stuck to the burns and they allowed me to soak them in the water to loosen them. Blood ran into the water until it turned pink. They gave me a wash cloth and told me to wash myself. I had to try and scrub the escar off of my legs, or they would do it. The washcloth felt like I was holding a porcupine. It pricked my hand so much, just like a handful of needles would. My right hand was not allowed to get into the water with the rest of my body. It was beginning to get infected and the doctors didn’t want to contaminate the rest of me. The water itself actually felt pretty good on the burns but nothing like I had anticipated it would. One time I sat in the tub for nearly three hours as the water turned cold and I shivered. Numerous doctors, nurses, interns, student nurses, you name it, came into the room to look at me. You loose all of your modesty real fast. People gawking at you and taking pictures of you while you are totally naked and disfigured is quite embarrassing. Eventually you just learn to get used to it.

       My room itself was a very cheerful place compared to the rest of the patient’s rooms. Even though the only window was up by the ceiling and you could not see the outside world at all, I had a lot of things on the walls to look at. I had many long banners and posters, one from my sisters and one from Whitmer’s Secret Spirits Club. I had hundreds of cards, letters, and pictures I received from friends, family, classmates and even some from people I did not know. It added a lot of color and life to the once dull boring room. I had many terrariums, figurines, dried flowers and stuffed animals too. So many people sent me nice things to try and cheer me up, and let me know that they were thinking about me.

       I was soon measured for some hand splints. Two women from the Occupational Therapy Department named Polly and Judy came up to my room to measure me for these. They had to be individually made for each patient. They were plastic splints that I had to wear to keep my hands into a position so that they could heal properly, and so that I could get the most mobility out of them as the burns healed. I had to wear these day and night and eventually just at night so that I was able to try and use my hands during the day. They were very uncomfortable and many nights I would struggle for as long as an hour trying to remove the ace bandages that held them secure so that I could unwrap them to get them off. I would use my teeth, or the railings on the bed, anything I could think of to help rid me of these horrible splints. But as luck would have it, some nurse would eventually come into my room and notice they were not on and put them back onto my hands. This was extremely frustrating since it took so much of my effort to remove them.

       Feeling so out of touch from all of my friends and family I asked my mother to see if I could have a telephone put into my room. The nurses agreed that I would be able to under one condition. If I could get out of my chair, and into my room to answer it myself then I could. They did not have the time to be answering my phone calls and taking messages for me. The unit was always full and the patients demanded a lot of attention. Believe it or not I learned real fast how to get out of that chair. I wanted a phone! It was the only way I had of knowing what was going on in the outside world. I called my friends a lot. It was difficult dialing and even holding the receiver but I somehow managed. I was still receiving many cards and letters daily and now I had to learn to open them myself. I would try sometimes for fifteen minutes just to open one card. It was so difficult. You never realize how important your hands are until you loose the use of them.

       Pastor Dinkel from my church was coming up to visit me almost every single afternoon. We would talk for awhile and pray together, not only for me but for others as well. I always felt so much better after his visits. He made me feel so much safer, like God was really with me the rest of the day looking over me. He made me realize that even though I was hurting, in pain and would be disfigured permanently, I should be glad to be alive. I was still the same person inside and that was all that mattered. I never thought that pastor’s visits could mean so much but they really did. I looked forward to his daily visits.

       On October 24th, eighteen days after the crash, I was given more blood and received a second surgery. My right had was not healing good, it was not improving at all, only getting worse. The skin that was grafted to my right hand was deteriorating. With every dressing change more and more of the grafted skin would just peel off. My hand became once again, a big open bleeding wound. My fingernails were about to fall off and something had to be done, so they grafted my right hand again. I remember the operating room this time. It was some horrible color of green and smelled of anethestic. It was also very cold. On this occasion skin was removed from my left hip and buttocks. My loose fingernails were removed so they could start to grow in properly. Little did I know that this would be the last time that I would have fingernails on my right hand. After the surgery, the doctors speculated that this graft should take about 75%. Anything was better than having no skin on my hand at all.

       After a few days the bandages were ready to be removed and I was ready to see my "new" hand. It turned out a lot worse than they had predicted. Only about 10% of the graft had taken. My hand was so infected; it was just full of pus and really gross. The pus would ooze out of my empty nail beds. I was getting frustrated with this. Here I had more donor sites that hurt like hell and for what? Nothing! The skin didn’t even take. I did not want another surgery. Before long if they kept this up there would not be anyplace to take skin from.

       My team of doctors decided that another surgery at this time would just be as unsuccessful as the other two because of the infection. I was given large doses of antibiotics in hopes that this would help to clear it up.

        This picture shows how the infection was eating away at the skin. The skin itself just sort of slid right off of the hand, and eventually there was next to nothing left. Possibly some new skin would start forming on its own. This hand was holding me up from going home. As soon as it healed over I could be released and do the daily dressing changes at home. Sure none of the rest of the burns were healed yet but they were to a point where my mother could do the day to day care on them herself.

        I was loosing a lot of weight. I felt skinny and I liked that. What young girl wouldn’t? Everyone who visited me would bring me all kinds of my favorite foods to try and fatten me up. I weighed less than 90 pounds. Steve once brought me up an Angelo’s pizza, which was my absolute favorite. My dad had brought me homemade spaghetti and meatballs and my mother had brought me up lasagna once. These were my three favorite foods, from my three favorite people.

       I started getting lots of visitors now. My girlfriends would come up after school and bring me McDonalds, cards, letters and photographs of school activities, even the schools newspaper. It didn’t even seem to matter to them what I looked like. They were truly good friends in every sense of the word. They filled me in on the latest gossip at school, told me about my classes and said "Hi" to me from just about everyone. They made out lists of people wishing me well, or wanting to say hello. On Halloween night, Cheryl and my friend Elaine went out trick or treating and got a whole grocery bag full of candy for me. I don’t know who enjoyed it more, the nurses or myself. They would constantly come into my room asking for candy, and sometimes when they thought I was asleep would sneak some. They thought they were clever. I didn’t care though. There was no way I could eat a whole grocery bag full of candy. It was nice having it there; at least I could offer it to my visitors, whom I sometimes felt like I was entertaining.

       The skin on my hand did not want to rebuild itself. The doctors wanted to get it covered soon. It had gone long enough without skin. They had decided to put amnion over my hand. This is the lining of the placenta, (the womb of a baby). They laid sheets of this across my open hand. Eventually it started to work. With each day you could see new buds of skin starting to grow underneath. We were all so excited. I was so glad. It finally started to reproduce and heal.

       Tiffany had long since been released by now and so were Greg and Jim. So in came more burn victims. They were all children. A little black girl named Alicia who was four years old. And two little boys, who were both under two. There were many times when the nurses were busy that I would help the children out of their beds and play with them. I would read them books, or try to color left handed with them. The little girl never had visitors. I felt so sorry for her. She had fallen into a bucket of hot water and burned her butt. It sounded kind of fishy to me but that was up to the Social Workers to find out. The boys had hand burns, and none of the children required grafting. It wasn’t long before they too were released. It seemed I was the only one staying. Would I ever get to leave this place? I wanted to go home so badly.

        Every single afternoon now I was taken by wheelchair down to the first floor to the Physical Therapy Department. There I would have my whirlpool for fifteen minutes on my right hand, then off to see my therapists, Clyde and Mary Sue. They would take each finger on my hands and stretch and pull on them in every direction imaginable. It hurt so badly; I would sometimes kick them under the table so that they would have to stop. These excersises were very important for me to get full range of motion in each finger. I didn’t like therapy. But it was truly a very important part of my healing process. I also had to practice walking up and down stairs. Now that might not seem like hard work, but I was weak and my legs were still not healed. They too had to be stretched. They were trying to prepare me for going home where we did have stairs.

       I will never forget the first day that I got to take a shower. I thought the tub experience was bad but this topped that one. I had to walk quite a ways down the hall. The nurse helped me to get my gown off and all of the dressings that weren’t stuck to me. When I did finally get into the shower the water felt excellent. Holding the bar of soap though was impossible. The nurse told me to get the rest of the dressings off of my legs. How was I supposed to bend over? I didn’t have any ace bandages on and my legs for support and they felt so weak. This was the first time I stood without them. I had become so accustomed to them. I looked down at my legs and immediately thought that I was going to faint. Blood was running all over. My entire feet were covered. When blood and water mix it makes it look worse than it really is, but I actually thought that I was going to bleed to death. I could not get the gauze off, I could not hold the soap, and I could not even wash my hair. After my burns were dressed and I was put into a fresh gown, we journeyed back to my little room. I lay in my bed exhausted. Here you would think that a nice warm shower would relax you and for me it was the complete opposite. As far as I was concerned, I would never take a shower again. It was simply just to much work.

       As my hand continued to start to grow its new skin, the time for my release was drawing near. I couldn’t wait. The night before I got to go home I couldn’t sleep. Not from the pain of the burns, I had become accustomed to that by now, but from anticipation and fear. I stayed up until after 4:00 a.m. First I watched a movie and ate popcorn with some of my favorite nurses and then I went into my room. I cried and wrote a long letter to all of the hospital staff that had helped me to recover this far. I did it left-handed and it took me a long time. Leaving this place was going to be hard. It really had become my home. I depended on these people day and night. There was always someone qualified and experienced around to help me. Things would certainly be a lot different when I left. Who was going to give me my itching pills, antibiotics, stool softeners, vitamins and all of the other medications I needed? I was no longer allowed to have anything for pain but Tylenol. It was simply to easy to become addicted to and a drug addict they did not want me to become. Were would I get all of the gauze and kling wrap and ace bandages? So many questions went through my head that night. I was also so afraid to ride in a car again, but how else was I going to get home? I wished that I could just float home, back to my own familiar comfortable bed. This was quite impossible so my fears had to be faced.

       The next morning my mother arrived with some clothes for me. This would be the first time I had put clothes on since the accident. Getting dressed went something like my shower. Slow, painful and very frustrating. My mother and I both said our good-byes; my mother had gotten close to every one in the unit too. I’m sure it was hard for her as well as me. I didn’t cry, even though I wanted to. I knew that I would see them all again one day. Whether for surgery or just a friendly visit. Anyway I was just so happy to be going home.

        The ride home in the car wasn’t as bad as I had dreamed. It was something that I knew could never be avoided throughout my entire life, so I faced it with all of the courage that I had. It seemed weird to be out into the world again. When I was last outside there were leaves on the trees, the air was warmer and my outlook on life was one with many expectations, hopes and dreams. Now everything had changed. I still had expectations, hopes and dreams; it was just that all of their meanings had changed. I was a completely different person now and would be forever. I had experienced the most excruciating pain one could have ever imagined and I was alive. I learned that life is very precious and I would never take a single day for granted again.

       When we finally turned down our street, I could see my real home. Thirty-six nights I spent in a strange unfamiliar place and tonight I would sleep at home. Outside was a hug banner that read: "Welcome Back Laura", all of my girlfriends and sisters had signed it. If they thought that they missed me just think about how much I had missed all of them. I missed everything. School, my family, my friends, my home, my clothes, and real food. I missed curling my hair, but now I had none to curl. I missed wearing make-up and making myself look pretty, painting my nails, wearing jeans, and jewelry. It would be a long while since I would do these things again but I was so glad to be home that I thought I was going to burst.

        I had many visitors those first few weeks I was home. I was starting to relax a little and was hoping for the best with my recovery. My legs were almost healed over. We still had to dress them, and some spots were still raw and would bleed but they were defiantly improving. My left hand looked good. All healed. Not a pretty hand but compared to my right hand it was beautiful. My right hand looked awful. The index finger was still open and raw and some tendons were still exposed. It was dry black and very stiff.

        I could hardly move most of the fingers. The nail beds were empty, and I was anxiously waiting for my nails to start growing back. They were very extremely tender too. My mother should have been awarded a nursing degree for all the care she gave me. She did everything for me. Dressing changes were no fun for either one of us. I would complain about her not doing it the way the hospital did, and I would try to do it myself. I wanted everything my way. I was what many people would call impossible. I realize now that my mother was doing her best. Not only did she have me to take care of which took most of her time but she also had five other children and a household to run. Still I was hard on her. It was so hard for me though too. I wanted to be like every other seventeen-year-old. I wanted to go to parties and school functions, hang out with my friends and the only thing I was allowed to do was rest, get dressing changes and go to Physical Therapy every single afternoon. I missed the life that I had before and wanted to go back to it so badly.

Chapter 4 Senior Days

Back to Title Page