Helen X

Age at interview: 51

Brief Outline:

Helen X was 41 when she sustained her burn injury. Helen sustained burns to her hands, face, torso, and legs when her clothes and hair caught fire. She spent 3 weeks in hospital where she received skin grafts. Helen says that a positive mental attitude helped her through her recovery.

Background:

Helen X is 51 years old and lives with her husband, they have one daughter who is 23. Helen X works part-time as a chemistry university lecturer. Her ethnicity is White British.

More about me...

Ten years ago, when Helen X was 41 years old, she was involved in an accident where she sustained burn injuries when her clothes and hair caught fire. She was airlifted by helicopter to hospital where she spent three weeks recovering.

Helen X does not remember anything from the accident. She was later told by a clinical psychologist that after experiencing the major trauma, her brain “just didn’t make a memory”. The last thing she remembers was waking up four days later in hospital feeling confused as to where she was and why she was wearing a nasal feeding tube. She was told by a nurse that she had been in an accident and had sustained burns to 26% of her body. Helen X was in a room on her own and had to isolate from other patients due to her risk of infection.

During her stay in hospital, Helen X underwent extensive rehabilitation, including skin grafts, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, consultations with nutritionists and dietitians, and other healthcare professionals. She found it helpful to set herself goals, such as aiming to be discharged from the hospital before a certain date. Helen X also found it helpful to speak to the doctors and nurses about the treatment she was receiving. She asked them lots of questions about her burns and her treatment so that she had a better understanding and could make more informed choices. Helen X’s advice to healthcare professionals is to “Explain what you're doing. I think it's the most important thing. If the patient has a greater understanding of the care and treatment you're providing for them, then there is a greater chance they are going to accept what's happened to them.”

After four months off sick, Helen X sought some “normality” and felt ready to return to work. At the time of her burn Helen X was a secondary school teacher, she said her students would ask questions about her burn, but she didn’t mind this as she wanted them to understand that scars are normal.

Ten years on from the burn injury, Helen feels in control of her life and that her burn injury does not stop her doing the things she loves. She thinks the accident has made her more resilient and more open to opportunity, she also says her burn scars make her more interesting as a person.

Helen X’s advice to others with a burn injury is to make sure their burns scars are looked after and protected.

Helen X couldn’t feel any pain at first because the burn had damaged her nerves.

It took a few minutes for it to sink in that actually, where was I, so it was almost like going from nothing to sort of like suddenly realising that it wasn't where I thought I should have been. If that seems to make sense. The nurse was lovely. You know she took, she was with me for quite some time explaining, you know, where I was and what was going on, so I’m very grateful for that.

I couldn't, I didn't believe her, because I had no pain. It's just 'really?', it's 'but how can I–' ... I distinctly remember telling her that, “But I can't have this injury that you're telling me about because I have, I don't have any pain”. And then she told me that the fact that because my burns were so deep, they had taken, like, the nerve endings. So, she said that's why you don't feel anything. I knew I had bandages in my face, so. But of course, I had my hands up in these hoist things because my hands were bad, and she explained to me that I had, like, dressings on my face. It was keeping me, to keep the skin moist.

Waiting for a few days after her burn gave Helen X some time to think about skin grafts. She wanted to know what to expect in terms of the appearance of a healed skin graft and went on to make different decisions for different areas.

I wanted to help myself as the master... as much as I could. but I think you need to make an informed choice... an educated, informed choice as well. and that’s why I was really glad I had time. Like, they said they couldn’t do any grafting till six days because they wanted the underlying blood tissue to be starting to heal. So, the blood vessels were growing in, so they’d have a better chance of the grafts working. Then, if they’d done them too soon, the chances are they may have died. but having that time to think about things and do a bit of research myself, yeah, really helped.

I wasn’t sure whether I would want... because the grafts that I’ve got are very straight lines, and the pictures that I saw, they had... they were very... I didn’t want to have it look like I had a square patch at the back of my hand. So even though I’ve got scars on the back of my hands, they are natural... they look natural rather than the rest of my body where I’ve had the graft put on. and I only learned that by looking at the pictures that I really wanted to look at. so that’s... that was my main reason. I just didn’t want... I wanted a natural-looking scar rather than a square looking scar, if that makes sense.

Helen X had a goal in mind which she said helped her recovery.

The next morning I wanted to get out of bed. This is a Sunday, about four days after it happened. And they said "Really?" And I said, "Come on, let's go," you know… [Inaudible] And then, I think that helped my recovery was also I had this positive mental attitude that as lovely as it was being in there being fed and looked after, I really wanted to go home. And because it happened before Christmas, I had a goal in mind – I wanted to be home for Christmas.

I said to her, I said "Right, you can take me out the ward, and I’m going to start walking up some stairs." And she goes, "You're not ready for that." And I said, "Let's try it." So, I always, sort of, set myself goals. I wanted to do things, but I said the healthcare professionals, without them, I would never been able to achieve my goals.

Did you think that goal-setting was helpful?

Yes.  Oh, absolutely, yeah. I do remember it's probably the Monday, and I said to my nurse, "What stages have I got to go through for my recovery?" She said about the dietitian, speech and language because I had my vocal cords are still damaged but, so I had to see speech and language therapist, and then there was the physio and all these people. And each one of them I said exactly the same “What do I have to do to get to the next stage?" You know, "This is my goal. I want to be out for Christmas. What do I have to, what I have to do – not what you have to – I have to do.”

Helen X sometimes experiences itching if she wears trousers with a constricted waistband.

Lycra stuff because I find the itches where my skin grafts and all my burns itch. So, I have to wear loose clothing, which is not a bad thing anyway. But apart from-, oh and waistbands on trousers because that's where my very deep burn was because that's where the clothing had burnt into me. That's irritating, that’s irritating now, actually talking about it, so I have to put cream on every day. But apart from that, no, I was never going to let anything stop me.

Itching's like, nuts, particularly around the waistband. If I wear jeans, something with the-, not quite a restrictive waistband because that's where my trousers burnt into me. I’ve got a really lovely, beautiful artificial skin graft waistband of my own now. And if my jeans rub on it or it's not, if it's quite constricted waistband, all that itches. At night time, I can get itching down in front of my thighs because I had quite a lot of skin graft on the front of my thighs. My hands don't itch. I can't feel them at all; this doesn't itch. It's like the stuff that healed itself, is fine. The stuff that I had grafted is really itchy, and whether it's psychological, whether, I don't know whether it's the nerves or something, but yeah, they do, which as long as I put moisturising cream on because that really helps. It's just like the rubbing action, I think, or anything else, so I’m full of like normal skin lotion, body lotion, and just rubbing it, and that helps.

Helen X, who is a teacher, wanted to return to work to see the children she taught and to get back to normality.

It was important to get back to as normal, normality as possible. I had exam groups as well, so year 11’s and year 13’s and so I didn't want them to miss out as well coming up to their exams, but I had to get back to normality. I had to have, again, and it was a goal in mind. It was something I had to aim for. I could have had six months off, but I went back after four purely because I felt ready. I would have gone back earlier, but they said no. No, just she said, “take your time and just come back when you're 100% sure”.

I felt like I was getting back on track, to be fair. Getting back to normality. I went back on a gradual return to work basis, and that was, yeah, that was what, just to get back to normal as soon as possible. And it felt like I rushed it. Some people probably thought I did. I think my husband thought I did, but I said I can't sit at home. I’m sorry, I can't sit at home and ponder about what-ifs and why's and wherefores. I need to spin back on my positive mental attitude, and I need to get back to work. I need to get inputting back into society. I don't want people sympathy, that's for sure. I just want to crack on and see soon... soon, the kids saw me realise I’m still alive because kids are... kids they've all thought I’d died. As soon as they see me and actually I’m still breathing. I don't know, okay, so my hands are a bit grim, but I had the covers on for a while. I still had the covers on. And if they asked to see, I just said, ‘oh, okay’. I’ll peel back, and they’d have a look. And they're like, ‘oh wow. Does it feel?‘. Even another kid said, “Does it feel lumpy? Does it feel any different?” and I said, “what do I feel?” You know, because kids are curious, and I would rather them understand that actually, a scar is fine and that this is what I’ve been left with and yeah, I do let them touch it, so they're good that they understand what it is and nothing to be afraid of.

Helen X asked her doctors and nurses lots of questions about her treatment. She said this made her feel more in control of her health.

I’m quite a curious sort of person, so I will ask a lot of stuff. How the doctors actually got out of my room the next morning without me asking and what's what with this and what's going on with that and how, you know, next stage is. And so yeah, I’m a naturally curious person, so I would want to know everything that's going on. It's like, for example, I had to wait. I think it was a week before I went down to theatre for my skin grafts, and I wanted to know ‘why did I have to wait so long?’ And the doctors are brilliant. They explained it all.

It's like things like your notes and stuff, you know, always asking, you know, the temperature gain, temperature and the blood pressure and stuff like that, why is this happening? Why is that happening? I’m not constantly why, why, why, child seriously because it's just one of those things that I really think you need to understand how your body works. If you understand how your body works and what the med professionals are doing to help you get better, it puts everything in a picture then, and it gives you that journey, it gives you that, you can see where you're going rather than being in like in a fog and not knowing or not understanding what's going on. So, I think the more you understand about the process, the healing process, what the medics are doing, what the nurses are doing, why they're doing it helps you to understand the process. It gets you healed better. And maybe that's helped with my mental attitude as well was because I felt I had a degree of control over and a degree of decision making. Then I felt that helped me as well.

Helen X found it useful to research her treatment options online before making a decision about whether she wanted a skin graft.

And I had a lot of literature as well dropped in for me to read because I’m just too curious. And I said if I get away without having the back of my hands grafted, if I could let them heal naturally, would that be a possibility? And he said “well, normally, we would graft them”. But I said, look, no. “If you can help me understand how I could help myself to get them healed better on my own at this point”, and when it actually came round the day of the skin grafting, he looked at my hands before I went down and said “You know what? I think we're going to let these heal on their own”. He said, “You're doing really, really well”. So that was a little bit of treatment that I really requested, but only after I’ve read a lot of information. I’m not sure how other people, whether they would naturally give out the information, or whether people don't want to know or don't ask, but I always found by asking and actually understanding what happened with and how burns heal. It helped me make a lot of decisions to help myself for sure.

I wanted to help myself as the master as much as I could. But I think you need to make an informed choice, an educated, informed choice as well. And that's why I was really glad I had time. Like, they said they couldn't do any grafting till six days because they wanted the underlying blood tissue to be starting to heal. So, the blood vessels were growing in, so they'd have a better chance of the grafts working. Then, if they'd done them too soon, the chances are they may have died. But having that time to think about things and do a bit of research myself, yeah, really helped.

Were there any other kind of informed choices that you made in regards to your treatment?

I asked the dressings to become less and less bulky if possible, and that was fine. And also, the hand slings, the ones where they put my hands up as well, I asked what could I do to get rid of those very quickly because those one make your arms ache, and they were gone within a couple of days.

I’ve learned an awful lot about looking after skin after a burn. I’ve learnt an awful lot about myself and my resilience, but I’ve also learned a lot, and I have maximum respect for the healthcare professionals out there that helped me through this. They were the best people in the world, and that's why I’m in a really good position, I think mentally as well as physically after the burns because they helped me through, and they, I always had an informed choice on my care as well, but that wasn't just them spoon-feeding me. That was me asking them what do I need to do too. It's not just the healthcare professionals’ job. It's your job as well to get better, and you need to do everything they advise you to do.