The last post deserves some follow-up... This is kinda a FAQ of the questions folks have asked. No picture because I'm too tired to look for the camera. Rest assured, the kid is still cute.
So, this whole thing happened in Alexandria, but the EMTs drove us to Childrens, just in case we needed to be at the pediatric burn center. Better to be there from the start than find out later we needed a transfer. In the end, we were not deemed a serious enough burn to need to be sent upstairs to the burn center. That was wonderful news.
I was stumped though on how they could discharge us. I mean, how do we do pain maintenance? I'd just seen so much pain on my baby's face and I was about to request a morphine pump. They assured me that ibuprofen would be sufficient. I made them repeat that a few times but they didn't seem to be kidding. And they weren't. Since discharge on Saturday, she's gotten one dose of ibuprofen and one of acetaminophen. It's unbelievable, doubly so considering the amount of rambunctious joy that kid can round up.
Upon discharge on Saturday, she was bundled in her dressing. Before dinner, she had the leg dressing off. So we wrapped and taped it back on... and she got it off again. So we wrapped and taped more firmly. And hoped that no pesky germs and bacteria were getting in there to cause infection.
On Monday, we went to the Burn Clinic. We showed up close to opening and hoped they'd see us promptly. Let me say, the Burn Clinic at Childrens is awesome. The most efficient, gentle, competent, inspiring docs I've ever met. The saw us promptly, removed her dressing, assessed her again, and put new dressings on.
1) they really know how to wrap up a toddler. Very clever. So clever, we weren't sure we'd be able to change the diaper.
2) the percentage quoted in the ambulance was way off. There is a joke: There used to be a method for estimating burn coverage called the Rule of Nines. No one uses that method anymore, but they still use the term. Now the Rule of Nines means to take whatever number the EMT gave you and divide by nine. In our case, the 20% estimate was reassessed to be 6%. Only 6%. If we'd started there, I'd think that was a horrifyingly large % of my baby's body to be burned. But coming down from 20%, it feels like a HUGE improvement.
3) we have 3rd degree. So much more burn knowledge than I wanted to have... ok, so burns take time to reveal their nature, to "declare" themselves. I've found myself thinking of this as a blossoming. It can take several days for a burn to "declare" itself. When we left on Saturday, it looked all 2nd degree but by Monday morning, it was obvious that the leg was about half 3rd degree. So far, there is still no talk of skin grafts, but they did upgrade her leg dressing to something that bonds more with the wound.
FAQ:
- How long she will be in wraps?
- Will she have scars?
- Old wives and herbal treatments:
- Will you ever drink coffee/visit that cafe again?
- Why on earth was the coffee so hot? Wasn't that a bad idea?
- How is WeeC doing? How is BigE?
- How are mom and dad?
I can't speak for dad, but I'm a lil jumpy. And clingy. But WeeC is not the cuddly type. Plus she's been pent-up and a holy terror, hitting her sister almost constantly. So I'm disciplining sternly and sneaking in a cuddle as I haul her off to time-out.
And I'll be frank: I know we are lucky. Our neighbors lost their child recently and as I was in the ambulance, still unsure of the outcome, I kept thinking, "at least I'm not worried she'll die. This is not life and death. We can handle all the rest." It's possible I'd be more emotional, blowing this up more, if it were not for the painfully acute knowledge that this is NOTHING compared to what could have been. This is just a burn, maybe a cool scar, something to brag about when my bruiser girl is on the roller derby team. This is not a tragedy; this is a life experience.
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