WBC Workshop Alpha Poems

The first workshop my father and I did at the WBC was on Wednesday, the Pre-congress Workshop Day where there were workshops that you had to pay an extra fee for to go to if you wanted.  Well, there was one in particular that interested me so my dad and I decided to go.  It was called, "Road Trip! Navigating life after burns," and it was the best workshop we did all week.  It was amazing.  Something that was interesting was one of the speakers said he surveyed a ton of doctors and nurses about what to expect for life after burns, what to expect years after our injury and he said they all basically said, "I don't know."  Because not much research is done not only on burn injury themselves but particularly on what happens to the skin and the grafts and donor site areas later in life.  We just don't know what to expect and then everyone is different cause skin is the largest organ of our body and everyone's skin is different so it makes sense that everyone would be different in their healing.

But there was a lot of interactive stuff we did, getting into groups and telling our stories and different things like that.  There was also a lot of crying in some groups...usually mine :)  But this group is also where I got a lot of useful information and I just got so much out of it.  The speakers were great and the information was fantastic and the way they set up the workshop was fun, even if there was crying.

At the end they had us each write an alpha poem.  An alpha poem is where you take a word, write it vertically and then write words out of each letter.  My dad did a great one and I shared it with the class cause he didn't think it was very good and didn't want to so I read it aloud for him.  And then he wanted to share mine cause I didn't want to share mine either cause I didn't think it was very good but when my father tried to read aloud my alpha poem, he couldn't get the words out, he started to get emotional and it was the first time I'd seen him show emotion like that since I came home.  So I grabbed the poem and read it aloud myself :)  I felt a strong bond for my dad in that moment as I grabbed his hand to tell him it's ok to cry, it's ok to show emotion sometimes.  And he squeezed my hand back.  It was a touching moment for my father and I.

So I wanted to share our alpha poems that we wrote in that class cause they're pretty good if I say so myself :)  My father's is the one about "SCARS" and mine is "CHANGED".  You can kind of read into the different words that my father and I chose and how they make us feel.  Hope they make you feel something cause they certainly did for my father and I.


Stop the stares
Can't we be normal again
Always hurting
Risk of contractures
Scared

Contractures never let up
Hard to accept
Always hurting
New body
Grafts everywhere
Everyday battles
Different