Burn Injuries

I remember bringing this machine in that sort of they take a double check the oxygen levels in your blood, the blood circulation or something. And I think this is one reason I look so bad. You know, I’m not saying I think about positively about the burn, but I sort of associated give up smoking or vaping with the burn because they wanted to do a skin graft and I was so adamant. I wasn't going to have one.

I remember the doctor coming in just saying “Do you smoke?” I said, “Yeah”. And I think he said to me “That's such a silly thing. You're killing yourself but anyway, if you give up smoking there's a chance you may not need a skin graft”. And so, I just completely, you know, kicked it in the can there and then.

I hadn’t that much to focus on, you know. that would have been a time would have been hey, I would have been bored. a), I would have been smoking more anyway, and b), it’s quite a stressful ordeal anyway. So to have just, you know, gone cold turkey and done it that way it was such a help and relief because it almost proved to me I can go through stress ordeals without a cigarette, you know.

So, in a way, I do sometimes see it as like a blessing in disguise. But it’s only for the fact that I lost a friend in it that maybe that it’s not a blessing.

Because, again, it was like, I was going down the wrong path kind of thing and it was like something needed to happen, or I could have potentially ended up dead.

Again, it was like the mindset I had before this was, a lot of the time was ‘Why has this happened to me?’ Do you know what I mean?’ Why has the world done this to me?’ And again, it’s, oh I don’t know. But again, I feel I’m more, I can accept what’s happened more rather than looking for reasons why it happened and, do you know what I mean? Because that’s how I see it now, it’s happened but I also feel that, although it was like a massive negative, I also feel that, but again, that’s turning it into a positive, that a lot of the things that I’ve done in my life, since having the accident, I would have never had the opportunity to do, if I wouldn’t have had, like, the accident.

So, I went to look … explore that route in my self-care journey and understanding who I was, and my scars journey, and I actually went to a practitioner, and she saw my scars on my chest and my body and she said she wouldn’t operate on them or do anything or camouflage. She said that I should – if I wanted to – add tattoos to my scarring, since they’re legacy scars, since they’ve been so long on my body, to enhance the fact. And she really said she loved the kind of texture and the story of the scars and what it brought. So, for me that was a turning point and in that moment I realised that my scars were beautiful, and they have power, and I can use it to create good and really enhance my journey rather than kind of hide away. But I didn’t begin the journey to hide away, I began it to do self-care but through the journey I found like a power and deeper meaning in it.

Once I’ve come out of hospital and that I wanted to give something back to the fire service, so when I was actually on a Princes Trust course that was being run by two firemen and we got talking and that and I was telling them how I want to give something back to the fire service and they said ‘Well, there is a voluntary arm of the fire service, it’s called the Community Action Team, would you like me to arrange an interview for you?’ So, I said ‘Oh yeah, we’d love that.’ Anyway, I went for the interview, like got taken on and all that and then, within three months of volunteering for the Community Action Team I got nominated and won The Most Valued Member of the Fire Service.

So, but again, it was like when I joined the fire service and just being in the environment with the-, it was just because of the affiliation that I had, especially with the fire station that it was, because it was the fire station that pulled me from the car, so it felt like ‘I’m home.’ Do you know what I mean? This is where I needed to be kind of thing. And from just the confidence that being around people that was always like ‘Oh, aren’t you doing well?’ or just always bigging me up kind of thing, that really raised my confidence and, yeah.

There's so much that you can use from it that's positive. So, you get so much more empathy for what people go through. You've experienced something, so you have so much, I’m trying to be so eloquent. How can I say it? I think, yeah, so it's having the empathy which is it's been a massive gift for me to actually be able to know and pick up on later. You can see when other people are upset or when other people are suffering, and I’ve definitely become more aware of that as an adult with what I’ve been through. But also, to have that understanding of how it can feel to be different is actually really good. It's actually really nice as an adult when you're actually having to connect with all different people. You can actually connect with so much more, you know. It's another depth. You have got more depth when you get older from having that experience that you can draw off. You know, just what you're capable of as well for having got through that you've got so much more. Like, you know what you can get through to it.

There's not much more that you can go through in life. That's going to be worse than that, and so once you're past that point, it's like, you know, life's going to be easy once you feel-, and it doesn't matter. Like nobody's perfect, and physical appearance is just so unimportant really because, you know, what's beautiful is actually what's inside as well. And it doesn't have to change anything. It doesn't have to be such a negative for your life. It actually can be once you're through the worst bit, it can actually be such a growth thing for you.

I realised that it makes me kind of unique and different, and it’s opened so many doors, it’s enabled me to connect to people on a deeper level and help people and help younger people than me, who are at an age where they understand their scars and may have had traumatic experiences surrounding it and live in a world where they have access to different images constantly, which can affect their cognitive and their self-esteem and social anxiety. So, I really use my platform now to try to combat those negative thoughts and really show a different society and how you can live with scars, but you can be proud about it and do amazing things, which society, and which sometimes people don’t think they can do. Or, are a bit shy because of their body looks different to everybody else’s.

So that’s where I kind of stand on it but, as I said again, I have to realise that my scars are different placement, different textures, different skin tones. I have to navigate them differently to a lot of people we all have to. So, when I think of my scars happening to me it’s something which I wouldn’t change just because of the opportunities and the connections I’ve made with my scars, which hasn’t hindered who I am today and who I want to be.