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| There are three nurses in particular that stand out in my memory because of their personalities. Frank was a cocky Indian with long hair down his back. I teased him about needing a hair cut. Sometimes he would hurt me more than usual during my bath, not on purpose, and I would threaten to kick him in the head, jokingly of course. I couldn't even walk, so there was no way I could kick anybody *L*. He would throw back his head and laugh so hard he couldn't continue bathing me. I had to joke, and act tough because inside I really wanted to cry and scream from the pain. Mary was the mothering type. She was my "Mom" in the tank room because my real mom wasn't allowed in there. Bobbie was a black lady with a good sense of humor and a very gentle touch. She was always so encouraging. I asked her one time about other people she had worked on and she said, "I've seen them worse than this and they made it, you're going to be just fine. Trust in God and you will be just fine." After my bath each morning, I would go through an hour of physical therapy. In the beginning that wasn't too painful but as a burn heals the skin tightens, and after time, you have to force that skin to stretch. It has to be done every day or the skin will bind up in one position. In my case, my arms bound up in a bent position. My physical therapy continued after I went home, but after a month or so I was going through even more pain because I didn't have morphine to dull it, and the tylox they prescribed me just wasn't enough to do it. The constant pain caused severe depression, and since they didn't counsel me before leaving the hospital, I didn't know how to deal with it and I gave up. The pain was constant and I couldn't even sleep to get a few hours relief from it. The doctors wouldn't prescribe anything that would help me sleep. After a while, in my mind, I felt I would go through the rest of my life dealing with that pain, and I started feeling hopeless. It was bad enough that I couldn't bathe myself, feed myself, or take care of my own kids. But to deal with the pain and see no end in sight, was enough to make me think of suicide. I wished that I had died in the accident. I wanted to take one of our guns and kill myself. My family took the bullets out of all the guns and hid them. I quit therapy and stayed home by myself most of the time dealing not only with the physical, but also the mental pain the best I could. My arms bound up and wouldn't straighten and I didn't care. I just wanted the pain to go away, the memory of the accident to go away, and the people to go away. It bothered me to see other people doing normal things like using a fork, brushing their hair, walking across the room. I could do none of those things. I didn't understand why this had happened to me. I was angry at God and asked Him, "WHY? What did I do to deserve this!?" I wanted to go back in time but knew that was impossible and it made me angrier. After a few months the pain was gone. My arms had begun to straighten slowly with a little determination on my part, some help from God, and a lot of prayers from friends and family. |
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