Day 9
- Amanda James Reece
- Jun 21, 2022
- 4 min read
June 19th
Discharge Day and Surgery #2 for Jay
Before my discharge process started, I headed into Jay's room bright and early before they whisked him away for his 7:00 am surgery. I laid hands on him and prayed over his grafts that were about to be revealed from his previous procedure and stood in faith that this next surgery would be supernaturally productive.
You have heard me mention how loathsome my morning debridements were numerous times. This one topped them all. Due to being discharged, they had to remove my morphine drip early in the morning. On top of not having pain medication, I also had a new (to me) nurse that morning. Let's say she did not have the tender bedside manner that the rest of the regular nurses had. She scrubbed, picked, and peeled; my body trembled and twisted in pain. She felt this was a good time to tell me, “Oh, it's not that bad"(coming from someone who has never been on the receiving end of the procedure).
To summarize:
-Debridement with a senseless nurse and no pain meds.
-Two women I've never met insisted on sponge bathing me from head to toe at the same time with cold water. It was humiliating and excruciating.
I cried, and they giggled. Mom was enraged.
Moving on!
After my debridement, Pt and OT came to measure me for my compression garments. They were stitched together right there in the burn unit. I was to wear them for 12 to 24 months, depending on my healing. The idea behind the pressure garments is to: relieve itching and pain, protect the skin, and reduce hypertrophic (raised) scarring.
My discharge was finally complete, just in time for Jay's brothers to take Maija to the airport to catch her flight back to Minnesota. We cried and laughed as we held each other and said our goodbyes in the busy waiting area outside the burn unit. Maija was one of heaven's tools, used to bring a healing that can't be found by natural means. I am forever grateful for her.
"Skin grew where there was no skin!"
To hear how Jay's second surgery went, head to our podcast and listen to DAY 9!
After spending most of the day in Jay's room, the time came to see my temporary "home,” Campus Tower Suites. Every step from the hospital to the hotel across the street, my heart was being pulled backward towards Jay's room. The distance was not foreign to us. We had spent months apart while I was back and forth from the US and Canada. The difference was that I was always able to talk with him. By this point, we had been together for three years. Not once had we gone a day without talking in those three years. Now it had been over a week since I had heard the sound of his voice. It was starting to wear on my heart.
We make it up to the 14th floor to our two-bedroom suite. All I had was the plastic bag from the hospital with some bandages, a small bottle of lotion, and the clothes I was gifted from Maija and her mom Lucia. I could feel my throat tighten as a flood of emotions bubbled within me. Mom showed me to my room and gave me a moment to settle in.
I grabbed my phone and sat down on the bed. I pressed on Jay's icon and saw the last text we sent each other last week. I asked him which field he was in, so I could bring supper to him. I loved meeting him in the field. It was my favorite part of the day.
Desperately longing to hear his voice, hit "call.” As it rings, my eyes fill with tears of profound grief. "Jason here; sorry I couldn't make it to the phone. Leave me a message, and I'll get back to you."
All at once, his voice soothed me while also bringing me to my knees in a heaviness I couldn't bear. Silently weeping on the floor, my body is triggered and returns to being trapped in the house. I feel the heat consuming my flesh and the smoke filling my lungs. This was too much for me to process alone. I picked myself up and walked to my mom in the living room.
She didn't even need to ask me what was wrong...she could feel it herself. I fell into her lap, and the deep wells of pain and grief cried from every corner of my heart. Mom immediately began to pray over me. She comforted me through the storm. "We need to soak." She says as she lifts my head and places it on the couch. She turned on worship music, and we sat and prayed, praised, and cried until Peace filled the room. It wasn't long until my sorrow turned into Joy.
The more we worshiped, the atmosphere shifted, and the heaviness lifted.
"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” Isaiah 61:3
I couldn’t lower my arms below my chest without immediate pressure on my arms. Intense enough to convince me that they might explode. Such an odd feeling. "Crab hands" is what the unit decided to call it.
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