Day 3 Burn..

I woke up feeling incredibly emotional today.  I am pretty sure it was because I knew I had to do the washing thing.  We finally got it over with around 9:30.  Savanna and Hallie had to be my helpers.  They weren't very excited but it went fine.  I gave them both a pair of earplugs so they didn't have to hear the screaming.  Her level of screaming seemed a little less but was still loud.  Livee didn't want the girls to hold her hands so she did her best at not grabbing my arms.  A few times the girls had to keep her hands down.  It went pretty fast.  We just did her foot.  It surprisingly looked better, or else I am getting used to it.  It didn't seem so red.  A bit more flesh color.  I told her we could go for a walk after we were done.  She held me to that.  She LOVES going in the stroller.  Hallie walked with me.  I walked dogs and Hallie walked Livee.  She wanted to walk all day.  Surprisingly she hasn't been sleeping in the day.  Once she is awake she is nonstop.  "Let's paint, let's color, can I play on your phone, what can we do?"  I swear that medicine makes her over sensitive.  She is super moody.  But luckily, she has been sleeping all night, except medicine time.  So I am ok with her staying awake all day.  She wanted to swing today.  I was a bit nervous about letting her.  I envisioned her falling off and breaking her leg, or hurting it.  But I started thinking about how much pain she has already endured and how happy it might make her.  So I told her I would hold her while we swing.  That lasted about 5 seconds and she wanted in her own swing.  She was in her swing for about 30 minutes.  She was pumping her legs and smiling and laughing.  I sat in my chair in the sun by her and scrubbed my feet.  She didn't like the cat or Lucy walking under her for fear of hitting her leg.  Anyways, she was a busy girl today. 
It was kind of a quiet day.  Jase had Day Camp for boy scouts and Aleena had art for half the day.  So I actually snuck a nap in today.  It felt sooo good.  I had time waking up.  Aleena offered to play cards with Livee on the bed so I could rest.  I have a mattress in the music room where we camp out at night or day. 
Livee decided she would crawl today.  I was worried at first, but I have got to let go of that.  She needs to be active and mobile and I want to just put her leg in a big hard cast so no one bumps it..  A few times I would turn around and she would be gone.  It's hard to not be paranoid at this stage. 
Her night time washing went good.  I let her take a nice warm long bath first.  She just propped her foot up in the tub.  She didn't want to do her foot, but she knew it had to happen.  We went fast and she did good.  Yes, still screaming, but it seemed easier on my part.  We wanted another walk after bath time.  It just seems to relax her.  Aleena came with me.  We just strolled.  It was nice.  As we passed Krista's, our neighbor, she had us an ice cream.  She said she had made cookies for Livee yesterday but we were gone.  We talked for a bit, but Livee was getting antsy so we headed home.
I tried to get some of her exercises in.  I didn't make her take any steps but I made her rest her foot on the floor. We got to 10.  I did some stretching.  She didn't like it, but I took it really easy today.  I even just had her let me rest my hand on her foot just so she isn't afraid of anything coming near to it.  We do her exercises with covered and padded so that helps. 

Aunt Kell braided her hair for our Salt Lake trip.  She was lovin' all over her on Monday.

She does not like me taking her picture. 

We had a nail painting session today.

Here is how she takes a bath.  Propped up on a  milk jug filled with water.

She is going to have sore knees. 

Even up the stairs.

Here is how it looked tonight.  Her little toes are starting to blister.  I am guess that skin is next to fall off.

The inside of her foot is worse than the outside. 

I am wondering if she will lose the white parts on the bottom of the toes.  It feels and looks like she dipped her toes in wax and let it harden.  The PT said walking would help sluff off some of the dead skin.  OUCH. 

Burn assessments

If the previous pictures were hard to see than these are going to be really hard and this post is pretty graphic. I debated posting them because it was pretty traumatic but I have got to have hope this will heal and it will help us see the progress and how far we have come.

We are on our way home from Salt Lake. It has been a rough day for Livee and for me. I am so super thankful that my sister took us. I would have been a wreck. It was fine until Livee started throwing up. We were pretty close to the hospital area when she started throwing up. Luckily we had a towel to catch most of it. Before she threw up we were on the hunt for french fries. She wanted french fries and where she isn't wanting to eat much we were trying to jump on that craving. Of course it was still breakfast time when we found a Mcdonald's and she had thrown up by the time we could get some and she was done wanting to eat. Of course by now it is time to take medicine so it is in her before her appointment and she has to eat with food or she might get sick. I start to feel naseaus and have a big pit in my stomach. The roads in that area are super hilly and curvy and me moving around in the car and my nerves about this appointment were building up. I ate some graham crackers in hopes I could hold it together. It helped. We stopped at Maverik and I got some of those wafer cookies. She ate 2 of them. Wahoo, now she can have medicine....we are home now, to be continued..

So we get to the hospital. This place is like it's own city. It is huge. Thankfully my sister Kell had an umbrella stroller that we brought. She just gets heavy after a while. We get checked in. We went to the Burn Clinic. It is next door the actual Burn Unit. The clinic is for burns that didn't require hospitalization or for patients being released from Burn Center.
We start with the typical questions, immunizations current? Her weight?, What happened? Who treated her? How have you been caring for it? Next she gets on the bed and has her hang her foot off the edge so she can remove the wrap. The foot is still covered in blisters. She has Livee scoot back so her foot can sit on the bed. She gets a couple wet wash cloths and sets them next to her and without any warning (which makes great sense cuz I might have hyperventilated) starts grabbing and pulling and cutting all the blisters and floppy skin off. Don't remember how the scissors sneaked in there but she was using them. Livee was sitting up so she saw her start this. I am sure it hurt like no other plus the sight of raw flesh freaked her out. She was screaming. The nurse was trying to do it as fast as she could. I got her to lay back and told her not to look but she couldn't just lay back. She was kind of thrashing so she would peak glimpses of it. Those few minutes will stay with me forever. The nurse had a whole handful of blisters and skin. She used the cloths to wipe it real good and then layed a cool cloth over it. Phew, it was over. When that raw flesh is exposed to the air it intensifies the pain. The nurse then told me she wants the Dr. to come in and look at it so we waited for a few minutes. Livee was still upset. She said while the nurse was out "They took my skin off". She was saying it in a voice of horror like she might lose her foot. So I reassured her and told her her foot needs to grow new skin that her foot will still be there. She settled a little bit to where she was crying but not screaming. The Dr came in. It was just about this time I started to notice her foot really had quite a smell. Kind of like a morning breath smell. The nurse informed us that blisters larger than a quarter actually slow the healing process down so I am assuming it was the blister goo that was smelly. He didn't want to upset her more by moving in on her foot. So he had me remove the cloth so he could look. He thought the toes would recover. They are white right now but he thinks they should regain their circulation. The bottoms of our feet are pretty tough but the tops of our feet are hard to heal. It is mostly a second degree burn but there are some deeper spots that are white that could be more than that. Burns take time to diagnose the damage and it takes time to see how the skin will start to heal. So those white spots could possibly heal on their own but they could also possibly need some surgical help. He wants to see her again on Saturday and see what her body decides to do. Somewhere in there the physical therapist came in and peaked at it before it got covered up. The dr leaves. The nurse shows me how to care for it. I am to wash it and get old oinment and any sluffy skin off, recream and rewrap twice a day and make sure it is about a good 30 minutes after medicine time and it will be easier on both of us.
After the nurse got her all frosted and wrapped, the physical therapist came back in with some stuff to work on like stretching her toes, and keeping motion in her foot and she really needs her to start walking on it and using it. When new skin grows it is really tight and we need to keep it flexible to prevent loss of motion.

We were finally free to go so we headed to the cafeteria to get some food. Kaydee and I weren't sure if we could really eat. We had lost our appetites. Livee didn't feel hungry but we went in and walked around to see what we could find. I was feeling a bit relieved now that the appointment was over. I didn't realize how nervous I was for it until about now. Anyways, Livee found a slurpee machine and cheetos and we finally decided on something. So we sat and ate and just chilled for a bit. Livee was freezing. So we decided to head out. On the way into town Kaydee dropped her car off in Centerville to get fixed at the dealers so we had a little bit of time to kill before her car would be ready so we decided to head to Target to get Livee something. About 10 minutes after getting in the car Livee's stomach started hurting so I rounded up a pillow case since I had nothing else, and sure enough. Up came her slushy and cheetos. I think the combo of her medicine and driving does not mix well. After getting it all out and cleaned up, she fell asleep. We drove to Target and Kaydee stayed in the car so she could rest while I went in to get her something to wear and a barf bucket. Did I mention before I was thankful Kaydee was there. She woke up after a bit and so we all went in the store. This is when Kaydee and I started to feel exhausted. Like we had been up all night. Our emotions had just drained us. We got a couple other things and headed out. I had gotten Livee a new blanket so she was in heaven snuggling with it. We headed back to Centerville to wait for the car. Livee wanted to go for a walk in the stroller while we waited. She LOVED me to push her. The fresh air and sunshine and being out of the car. We walked for a good 20 minutes. Kaydee test drove some cars while we walked.
We were finally on our way home. Livee slept most of the way. Kaydee dropped me off in Burley at my car at Kell's. We ran in and got her medicine again so that she would be ready for a bath when we got home.
I have held it together pretty good so far but the bath thing was tough. We put her in the tub first to wash her hair and body. She is already crying in anticipation of the foot part. I kept her wrap on for this and just propped her foot up. Then we put her robe on and did just her foot in the sink. This way her foot had a smaller window of exposed air. Brad held her arms and I did the washing. Not fun. Quite disgusting to be honest. She was screaming and the kids that were home, Jase and Aleena were concerned. We survived. And the thought of me doing that to her twice a day for how long became incredibly heavy on me. I escaped to the shower myself after she was all settled and I finally had my moment of breakdown. Once it was out I felt better. I got out and I had a pow-wow with my 3 older kids of this is when families pull together. This injury is going to temporarily change our lives. I can not do it all and everyone needs to pitch in. I might have to be gone or just be with Livee. At times all she wants is mom. They weren't super excited but they are good kids. They love Livee and are very concerned and so we will survive.

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