Nose Piercing Is Back!

As many of you already know from my facebook, I finally got my nose pierced again!!  When I was burned, they took out all of my piercings, except my earlobes, and my nose was one of my favorites.  Other favorites were the cartilage in the upper inside of my ear and my belly button.  But I've been wanting to get my nose pierced again for, well, almost five years now.  Since my accident.  I was going to have to get it done when I was in between surgeries for at least two months and the opportunity presented itself this December after I got my tissue expander in.  It takes at least three months, sometimes more, to get the expander at it's full capacity so it was time to go get it pierced.  My mom surprised me when she told me she called a place to see how much it would cost and the next day we had an appointment to go.  I was so happy and excited. I'm determined to reclaim my body.  Make it mine again instead of the fire's.  So, first I got a long awaited tattoo, of which there are more to come as soon as surgeries slow down and donor sites far and few between.  Next I got my nose pierced again.  And next up I want to get that other ear piercing back I talked about earlier.  Possibly after my next surgery....

The piercing went just as I remembered it.  Didn't hurt.  Out of all the piercings I had, I think my nose hurt the least.  Of course your eyes naturally water a bit cause they do if you do anything to your nose but other than that, it was over before I knew it.  And when she got the stud in, I felt like a piece of me was back.  A small piece, but a piece.  I looked over at my mom with a huge smile I felt so good.  I felt a little more like me.  I know it's seems silly that a nose piercing would do that but the fire took so much from me, so much of my body that to take back pieces of me is huge.  And positive.  And moving forward is what I'm all about from now on.  I know I'll have setbacks here and then but that's to be expected.  As long as I get back up and slowly take back what was mine and more, I'm moving forward.

 (The nose stud - when I first got it pierced)

(Trying out a nose ring - nearly a month healed)

Finding My Gold

"When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful."  ~Barbara Bloom

I am a broken object.  I have suffered damage not only to my physical self but also to my soul.  I feel as though there has been an abscess on my soul that has only gotten bigger and bigger through these last five years and I don't know how to heal the damage.  The Japanese aggrandize the damage of a broken object by filling the cracks with gold to make it more beautiful.  I feel like the accident has reduced me to nothing but cracks and it's gonna take an awful lot of gold to make me more beautiful.  So what is my "gold"?  I think it's going to have to be a number of things.  Not just one "gold" piece is great enough to glorify or improve my damage.  There are many materials that will make up my gold.  Like love.  Like peace.  Like real, true friendships.  Like finding joy and happiness, acceptance and forgiveness.  These are all things that will fill the cracks of my damaged physical self and inner soul and become beautiful again.

Home Tissue Expansions Coming Along

Since I've got a great and considerate burn doctor, he didn't want us to worry about driving down to Portland every week through the winter and bad roads to get my expander filled, he taught my mom how to fill it at my post op appointment in December after my last surgery.  So every Saturday we've been filling the expander with 80cc's.  So far we've done four (or five?) expansions and it's starting to get really big and really noticeable.  Not to mention, painful.  When it first gets expanded and intermittently in the days afterward, it feels like a migraine in my shoulder/neck.  Despite her hesitancy to do it this way, my mother does a great job.  Actually, it's like a team effort between her and my dad.  Since the saline solution is so hard to draw into the gigantic syringe, my dad draws it out and injects the solution into my expander while my mom handles the needle and sticking it into the port.  I do not look forward to Saturday's.  I have an appointment with my doctor on January 17th so he can see how it's coming along.  I'm sure we'll have many more weeks to go with expansions.  He wants this thing big so he has lots of skin to work with.  Ugh....

2013 - A New Year To Move Forward

I realize I haven't written in nearly a month but this has been a trying last part of the year for me.  I had five surgeries in the past six months and have been battling severe anemia that has been taking away so much of my life because most of the time I just want to lay down or go to sleep I'm so tired.  Or I'm too weak to get up and do anything, even to write here.  It has been doctor appt after doctor appt and blood test after blood test with an increase of my iron dosage each time and to no avail because after each increase in iron dosage and blood test, nothing is making it better.  And I'm taking a lot of iron.  But onward...

It's a new year.  I used to be into resolutions but then I started noticing that they never really changed.  They were pretty much the same every year.  So I don't make resolutions really anymore.  But I do always want the new year to be different, better.  This year I want to make some dreams come true, as a friend put it to me on my Facebook page.  I want to be more productive and that includes on here.  I wouldn't say I want to "start" losing weight because I have already started.  I have been working on that for this past half of a year more intently.  It has been a battle but I really think this is the year.  I'm really tired of being a shadow of my former self so I'm going to get myself back.  That's really the most important thing I want for this year.  To get me back, but with even better compassion, understanding and courage than I knew of myself before.  My trials and tribulations in the past (almost) five years have changed me, but for the better.  I have found out things about myself and people in my life that I don't think I ever would have had I not been through them.  I wish I didn't have to have gone through some of the hellish ordeals that I've gone through to find those things out but that's just the way that one went for me.  Accept.  It's time to stop living in the past and live in the present.  It's time to stop dwelling on what was and accept what is now and make the best of it.  Of course, easier said than done, right.  But I'm also going to be turning 31 this months and I feel like I've done nothing with my life in the past five years.  Such a waste of life it's been these past five years and I don't want to make it six.  

More productivity, more patience, more smiles, more laughter, more love for me for this new year.  More dreams to come true.  More moving forward.   

The Wound Is Where The Light Enters

"The wound is the place where light enters you."  ~Rumi

 A dear friend posted this to me on my Facebook wall and I thought it was incredible.  I kind of collect quotes in my head and I had yet to come across this one.

You could take my wound figuratively or literally.  Let's take it figuratively for now.  My wound is most undoubtedly my heart.  Or perhaps even dead dreams.  I've talked about both in extreme detail on this blog.  My wound is especially deep because of the extent and life-changing seriousness of the trauma, which, in turn, causes the brightest light to enter.  The light floods in, bringing with it moments of wonder but also, most often, tears.

I dream many days that my heart will be a source of courage and wisdom someday.  That I will be able to draw upon the experiences I've had to endure and the resulting feelings and share with others the wisdom I've learned and the courage that has taken root in my wounded heart.  In the meantime, I continue to search for what is the wisdom in my experiences that hides within the extensive heartache of them as well as finding the courage to face what I know of my life now as a burn survivor.  Most often my wound, my heartache, is suffocating me with heavy melancholy and I'm desperate to find the light in my heart that can lift it.

A Good #37

Surgery #37 is over and it was a quick one.  Also one of my easiest from check in to my dreaded being put under.  Check in went smooth.  Only little hiccup was getting my IV in, of course.  I'm a hard stick.  They immediately brought in the IV team and the first person tried twice and couldn't get it in so they wrapped my hands and arms up in warm blankets and I waited for the second person on the IV team to come in and by this time it was starting to get close to my surgery time.  Finally the second person on the IV team came in and was able to get a really good IV in in my upper forearm on the first try.  Right immediately after she was finished my anesthesiologist came in and he was great from the start.  I didn't hear from him the night before so this was the first time I met him.  I hadn't had him before in the past.  Many times I have repeat anesthesiologists cause I've had so many surgeries but this was our first time together.  And I really liked him.  He was bright, talkative, and funny.  Anesthesiologists who don't talk to me bother me.  But Dr. Chiu talked to me plenty :)  Then soon the head surgical nurse came in followed by my awesome doctor who was in good spirits that morning so we had some fun joking around with each other.  And then the nurse, anesthesiologist and me were off to the operating room.

Once inside the operating room everyone was busy getting ready but the head surgical nurse, the anesthesiologist and my doctor were with me getting me ready.  As Dr. Chiu was putting my blood pressure cuff on my left forearm he noticed my tattoo and asked about it.  I explained it and suddenly The White Stripes were blasting over the speakers in the operating room and I knew who had done it: my doctor :)  He truly is the best.  He always remembers and knows it helps relax me.  Dr. Chiu wasn't familiar with the White Stripes so when it came on I yelled out, "All right!  Rock it!" and Dr. Chiu said, "So this must be the White Stripes, huh?  Well, let's rock it then!  I like!"  It made me smile.  Then he said, "Good music is on and I'm about to put some good drugs in your IV, all is well," and suddenly I could feel the relaxation drugs hit me all the way in my legs and I felt nice and relaxed and my favorite band was playing.  I wasn't feeling so anxious anymore.  Then the oxygen mask went over my mouth and nose and because the IV was up in my upper forearm, I never felt the sting of the anesthesia so suddenly I started to feel warm inside my body (anesthesia will make you feel an inner warmth) so I knew it was going in and my eyelids started to feel strange all the while listening to The White Stripes until I was out.  It was a good way to go under.

The surgery was only an hour.  The only other surgery I've had that's ever been that short was the one I had done on the contraction beside my right eye.  I woke up quick from this one, too and I didn't feel too bad.  I wasn't in too much pain, just a little uncomfortable so I had a couple shots in my IV of pain medication.  Not too long after I had woken up I suddenly felt a hand rubbing my left shoulder and I looked over and it was my doctor coming to check on me.  So sweet.  He said everything went really well, gave my arm a touch again and went out to talk to my mom again about when he wanted us back for a first fill.  He had talked to her earlier when he was first done with the surgery but he forgot to talk to her about when he needed me back.  And not too much later I was headed back to the Day Surgery area to recover some more.  I was actually going to have a day surgery.  For the first time in 37 surgeries I didn't have to stay in the hospital.  My mom fed me some diet Sprite and some crackers once we were back in our Day Surgery room and I got some more pain meds along with some prescriptions from my doctor.  Soon I was getting unhooked from everything, getting dressed and being wheeled out in a wheelchair to the car to go home.  I was in and out of the hospital so quick I barely felt like I was there.

So overall, surgery #37 was a breeze with everyone in good spirits.  I now have a tissue expander in on the right side of my neck with a JP drain coming out for drainage.  The JP drain only has to stay in for a couple days and then my mom can pull it out.  She's done it before so she knows how to do it.  The tissue expander is small right now with only a little bit of fluid in it but it's a bigger expander than I thought it was going to be.  And it's really hurting me good today so I'm not feeling all that well.

 (Tissue expander just underneath the skin on the right side of my neck.  It's small right now so it doesn't pull on the stitches.)

(The JP drain, which was just emptied before this picture was taken so you didn't have to see gross drainage.)

Surgery #37

I'm having surgery again this morning.  My fifth one in six months and 37th overall.  But it's a smaller surgery. Should only take a couple hours and it's supposed to just be a day surgery but I've never had a day surgery in my life.  Even when I was scheduled to have a day surgery once before they still decided to keep me overnight in the burn center.  So we'll see if this really is going to be a day surgery today. I really hope so.  I don't feel like another hospital stay.

So this surgery is to put a tissue expander in my neck, the right side of my neck.  And the intention is to blow up the expander with saline solution over time so that it gets bigger and bigger and stretches the skin in my neck.  Once the doctor decides there's enough skin, I will go back into surgery to have it taken out and the stretched skin will be pulled around the right side of my neck where I keep having problems with that contracture.  This way it is less likely to contract.  That's the theory anyway.  This will be my fifth expander so this process is not new to me.

Once again I am nervous and anxious to do surgery again.  I don't like being put to sleep.  It frightens me the most.  Surgery is at 10AM with a check in at 8AM.  So I guess I better wrap it up and get ready cause we'll be leaving soon.  Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  They mean so much to me and I really need them so thank you.  See you after.