Burn Injuries

I had an expectation to have a huge amount of judgement, because that was undoubtedly the emotion I had over the whole of the thing, was that of guilt. Immense guilt, because it was entirely my fault. This child you’re supposed to protect, that you’ve failed to protect at this point, that was the difficult part of it.

I felt extremely guilty. I felt like I’d failed as, you know, the parent in charge at that point. I felt apologetic to my wife that I’d allowed one of my children to become damaged – that is not what I should be doing – I should be doing the opposite. I would imagine some alcohol was consumed I would guess. But yeah, those feelings were very profound in terms of feeling like a total failure. And that just immense feeling of guilt, and that feeling of if I could have made this happen to me rather than her, you know, a two-year-old child, you’d want that to happen every time. So, it was, yeah, that was the beginning of kind of, I suppose, trying to process it mentally, the situation.

I think my guilt kind of intensified and my shame of it grew the more I kind of understood, well no, it’s not going to be gone in a week, it’s not like a scab, it’s not going to scab over and go, it’s permanent for him.

I didn’t want to relive it. For me, it was a horrible lapse in judgement, it was a moment that I would take away in a heartbeat. I mean, people say if you did a day in your life again, that would be the day that I would redo because then that wouldn’t have happened to him and he would be, you know, you’d look at his back and there’d be nothing there.

It’s kind of a dark episode for me and I’m kind of one of these people who compartmentalise things and I think I’ve put it somewhere, but I only deal with it when I have to. So, kind of it comes across as like ‘Well, you’re not really that bothered about it, are you?’ Whereas actually I’m kind of a bit worried about what they’re going to say tomorrow, whether or not the laser surgery’s still on the card or the skin graft is going to be needed. Are they going to be ok with it, does it look ok? Yeah, it’s um … it’s more … it grows as you kind of process it more, I think, and then you kind of, obviously, you deal with it and you rationalise it in your mind and you then are able to move on from it I suppose. But constantly thinking “Be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful!”.

Amy: I think I found it harder, especially in the early days, because it was the guilt, because he was cooking dinner for his siblings and that’s like a parent role. Even though he’d done it and it’s part of life skills and the fact that I was at work, and I wasn’t at home, not that things would have been any different and, actually, if I’d been home and not Chris, I don’t think I would have got water onto him quite as quickly. But, yeah, I think it was the guilt and wondering whether people are judging you for actually you’ve made …

Chris: And interestingly, the, on that kind of front, people were more questioning of the fact that we’d let him cook. Not that he was cooking but “Oh you let, you let the kids cook?” It’s like “Yeah, what’s he going to do when he goes to university? Just eat beans out of a tin?” You know, no, of course he cooks. He’s been cooking for years.

Chris: I think probably one of the hardest things for me was everybody telling me that his burns wouldn’t have been so bad, weren’t as bad as they could have been because I’d got to him. And actually, tempering that with the fact that I was sat in the living room, and he was doing the work. And so that guilt of “I could have been doing that and then he wouldn’t have got burned.”

Amy: The guilt thing we have different, we have the same guilt but in different ways and Chris got to hear the screaming, I got to see the debriding bit, yeah, we just saw different sides of what was happening and…

Chris: Another shared experience, isn’t it?

We got on, actually, we got on quite well, if I’m honest, and we probably got more close than ever before and I’m well aware it can go the opposite way, and it could have easily gone, I’m sure, the opposite way with us, in a highly stressful situation and, you know, it’s-, and you’re on top of each other all the time, you know, in the same room and I think we’re quite good at acknowledging when you need a bit of space, when one of us needs-, we did a lot of shift work staying over with Elizabeth, so we weren’t constantly kind of in each other’s faces, and my husband likes to pace up and down so when he would pace up and down and drive me insane I would tell him to go and get a coffee or try and do everything in the politest way, when you probably want to just scream at them to, but you need each other and that’s the-, you need people, whether it’s a partner, a mum or dad, whatever, you need people who know you and he was my person, there was nobody else.

She was really good about it. Which I, with hindsight would have always expected her to be, because we do share the work of parenting reasonably down the middle. So, it’s not like it was, don’t know what I’m trying to say, no, she was very good about it, and she was trying to be reassuring that these things happen and that kind of thing. But she was, it would have been easy to imagine her being angry, but she wasn’t. And she obviously, I mean, there would be no benefit to that anyway, but she could obviously see that I was, like, negatively impacted by the whole thing. So, yeah, she wanted to know what happened, I explained what happened um, and I think probably she was reassuring, and I think probably the reality is she’s done the whole thing of putting the child on the countertop thing – I think she’s done that as well and, you know, she probably said something like that. Because it was something that WE did. It was a kind of a routine thing to do. So, yeah, it was fine. She’s been immensely supportive throughout the whole thing.

It was helpful because I didn’t need anybody else beating me up, because I was already beating myself up enough. It would almost have not made any difference anyway because I was so disappointed in myself that it wouldn’t have made any difference whether anybody else had been any more disappointed anyway.

Initially, I felt guilt and a little bit of paranoia, you know, what are these healthcare professionals thinking of me? You know, we all do it. Children in my school tell me things all the time and automatically my head goes to “What was the parent doing? What was their story? How’s the …” you know, and I know my class and my parents quite well, so I can sort of differentiate between the two. But when it’s kind of happening to you, it’s a really odd feeling. I know we’re professionals and we don’t judge each other but, you know, in your mind you’re always thinking “Oh, this guy’s burnt his son, what an idiot. But is he really, is he a horrible man? Is the wife ok? Is there any marks on the daughter?” Do you know what I mean? It’s that paranoia, checking up on you constantly and actually, it wasn’t but, for me, it felt that way. Guilt, I think, more than anything.

I was very concerned that I would potentially be judged that my child had a burn. I felt, the first thing I think I said to my local hospital and the burn’s unit was “She was on a scout camp. She was on a scout camp. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t informed.” Because, yeah, I suppose I felt like I needed to explain myself that, you know, the burn happened on a Friday, and we didn’t attend a hospital until the Tuesday. I felt I needed to defend that action. Because then I’m going in saying “Do you know, I’m really worried about this burn.” So that was definitely something on my mind that I would almost be judged that my child had a burn. How had this been allowed?

I think probably the staff gave the impression that they had children or had children that had grown up and that concept of, you know “You can only do so much”, you know you can only protect kids to a certain degree, and things happen and they do, you know, accidents happen, kids make mistakes, you know, people look the other way, all that sort of stuff, and these things happen. They very much gave that, you know, I didn’t feel judged by them at all. And, of course, you think, you know, they work in a burn’s unit with children, that’s what they see. So, they were good in that regard.

I remember, very early on, and I’ve said it many, many times over the years, that I couldn’t wait for Elizabeth to be of an age where she can make these decisions herself, which sounds really, really selfish but it was, I suppose to take the-, sounds awful, like the guilt off me. That she chooses to have these operations because she wants them, not because I am pushing her to have them or you know, it comes from her. It sounds really, really selfish but it’s, yeah, I’ve always said I couldn’t wait for her to get to an age where she can just kind of make her own decisions herself.

And is that getting easier for you as she gets older or is it more of a worry?

I thought it would be easier but it’s actually not. So, yeah, I don’t know because obviously, you know, we’re at a stage now where she needs things done and I suppose she’s going to start saying to me now “Well actually, I don’t want this done” when I know she needs it done. So, it just the different stages, I suppose when you’re very, you know, you’ve a very young child, you wish for them to be bigger so that they can do something else, you know, make them more independent, make them more whatever it is, and it’s the same with surgery. But now I’m at that stage, I’m like “Oh my God, it was so much easier when she was younger, and I could mind her and mollycoddle her.” So, yeah, I suppose it’s just the same for anything in life, you’re constantly wanting something else and then it comes along, and you think “Actually, that was easier.”

I think it’s always, you know, worry for other children. And my parents and sister, who they were living with at the time, because they gave up their life to care for our children. But I think it was the hardest-, because our other children were so young that it was the hardest part was, I suppose, for them asking questions, especially our oldest one at the time because he was only I think he was six and kind of saying ‘Well, why do you and daddy have to be with Elizabeth but we’ve got nobody?’. And that was really, really difficult because, trying to explain that to, like, a just-gone six-year-old, you know, that she’s really ill and she needs both of us, and he was like ‘But we need you too.’ So, it’s-, the other two were probably too small really to kind of understand. But that was, you know, that obviously breaks your heart as a parent because you’re torn between this and that and you feel like you can’t please anybody and you’re making everybody upset, including yourself. So, that was probably the hardest part, you know, the living in temporary accommodation or, you know, running back and forth to hospital. It’s, you know, as hard as it is, I think when you’ve got other children and you’re torn between everybody that was probably the most heart-breaking part of everything. And the guilt probably.

What was the guilt like?

Well guilt is awful and it’s the worst as a mother anyway. You know, I’d ring up every day to speak to them, to Facetime them, whatever, and they wouldn’t want to speak to me, especially the older one because, obviously, he understood a little-, a tiny little bit more than the other two but yeah, it’s just like that guilt coming away from the phone or video and, you know like your heart is aching because you’ve got, like, nobody and you want to please everyone but you’re pleasing nobody and it’s yeah, the guilt is horrible. And then questioning yourself as well, ‘Well, maybe one of us should be with them and one of us should be here.’ You just literally are torn between everything and everyone.