Holly

Brief Outline:

Holly’s son was 2 months old when he was burnt after his skin was accidentally touched by a hot dummy holder. Her son’s burn did not heal properly at first because of cow’s milk protein allergy.

Background:

Holly is a teacher. She lives with her husband and their two children aged 5 and 2. Her ethnicity is White British.

More about me...

Holly’s son was 2 months old when a hot dummy holder accidentally touched his back and he was burnt. After ringing 111, Holly was told to go her local A&E with her son where his burn was assessed. The healthcare staff at A&E told Holly she would need to travel to a more specialised children’s burns unit the next day.

At the appointment at the burns unit the next day, healthcare staff spoke to Holly about her son potentially needing laser treatment because of hypertrophic scarring. Holly felt upset when this was mentioned as she worried about her son needing to go under anaesthetic. In the end the healthcare staff decided not to operate as the operation may worsen the scarring. Holly felt guilty at the fact that her son had already experienced a burn injury and may need to “go through more”.

Holly had not foreseen how long recovery from a burn injury can take, and she found this to be surprising and upsetting. Her son’s burn was taking longer to heal than the burns staff had envisioned, and eventually they discovered that this was due to a cow’s milk protein allergy.

Thinking about the future, Holly felt unsure about how her son would feel about his burn. Sometimes she worries that he would feel self-conscious about his appearance because of it. When this happens, Holly tries to remind herself that her son’s scar is a small size and that what happened was an accident. As her children are still young, Holly has not yet had a conversation with them about appearance and body image, and says she will “cross that bridge when we come to it”.

 

Holly would sometimes need to take days off to take her son to his appointments at the burns centre. When she told her employer this, she said they were “really understanding” about it and never questioned her.

Holly’s son’s burn did not heal properly because he had a cow’s milk protein allergy.

But my little boy had lots of, had some health issues when he was a baby as well, so we didn’t realise that he had a cow’s milk protein allergy, so he wasn’t, he’d hardly feed at all. So, they were quite concerned. They were saying it was taking a bit longer to heal than it normally would heal, and it turned out that that was linked to the fact that basically he wasn’t getting enough nutrition essentially, because I could only try and get an ounce of milk down him at a time. So, that took longer, I guess, that process to heal. And then, at four months we were finally referred to a paediatrician for his eating, who said “Right, it’s cow’s milk protein. Put him on this milk. You stop having any dairy” because I was express breastfeeding him. And also, he had to go on food, like, he had to start food early, and as soon as we did that his burn just suddenly started healing. But we’d had two months of it basically taking ages to heal. So, it was great, after that it really did start to heal.

Holly’s employer was understanding when she told them she would need to take time off in the future to attend her son’s hospital appointments.

Yeah, so, when I went back to work, as soon as I went back in I had to say to them “Look, I’m really sorry but I am going to have days where I’m going to have to take days off” and when I first went back to work I think I had a couple of days, because we were still going every three months I think then. Yeah, so I would have had a couple of days off and, yeah, it was just something that I basically said the first day I got back into work “Just so you’re aware, this has happened, and I will have to have time off.” But my work was really, really understanding about it, so that was fine.

They didn’t quiz me loads about it, which was great. It was just totally, it wasn’t “Well tell me more” you know, I didn’t have to go into loads of detail about it, which was great, because I wouldn’t have really wanted to. It’s hard enough to have to say it in the first place. And just realising that this isn’t, you know, you’re not going to a burns appointment to go on a jolly, you’re going because it is so important for your child. So, and if the person who is working for you is a good worker and not taking time off here, there and everywhere and it’s literally to take their child to this appointment, I think if you can be totally unquestioning about it and say, “That is fine, that is such an important priority,” that would be really fantastic I think for everyone involved.

I think sometimes with work, they can ask you to be really specific. You know “I want to know exactly why? Where are you going? Why are you going there? Who’s-?” and I really appreciated that they just didn’t over question it.

When her son was burnt, Holly told us she needed to take things one day at a time.

I think because he was only two months’ old as well, when you’ve got a baby that’s that young, you’re not really thinking long term future, you’re just like ‘Let’s get through each of these days.’ So, I can’t say, I think once I saw, once I went to [city] and I found out it was going to be a longer process, I felt very sad. But I can’t, I wasn’t, at that point, thinking sort of future.

I think because he was a baby and when you have a baby, especially that young, and who had these health, we didn’t, we knew he wasn’t right but it was literally getting through every day, because he was screaming all day, every day because he was obviously in so much pain from his stomach, it was less “Let’s think about the future” and more like survival mode almost. So, yeah, I guess at the time I didn’t really think about “Oh what’s this going to be like in two years’ time.” I just, I think as time went on and I saw that it was going to be quite a thick scar – and I guess that would’ve been about six months to a year after – that’s when I started thinking a little bit more about the future and, you know “What’s it going to be like when he takes his clothes off and goes to the beach or …”.

Holly, whose son was burnt as a baby, worries about how he will feel about his appearance as he grows up.

I am concerned about when we have to have the conversation with him about what happened. That’s something that I can’t say I sort of look forward to doing. I mean, even the psychologist said to me, and a number of people have said to me ‘Oh, boys love a scar’ but that’s … that’s not necessarily the case and you don’t know how MY boy, how MY [son] going to react to it. Which, I guess, is a bit, I don’t know, it’s a little bit … I know everyone’s trying to be nice saying that but it’s a bit stereotypical and it doesn’t reflect necessarily the society we’re living in nowadays where you say ‘Oh, yeah, you should see the other guy’ sort of thing and, you know, ‘I got it in a fight’ or whatever and, you know, the story behind it. Um, I know people are trying to be nice but yes, most people have said that to me including members of the NHS, um, in a jokey way perhaps but it does make me think ‘Yeah, how will he deal with it?’ It might be that he literally couldn’t care less, or it might be that actually he is very looks-orientated and very sort of self-conscious of its. So, it will be interesting, but it’s also something that I think about, of how he’ll cope with it. Because I know there’s always going to be things that you’re … that anyone who has something that they’re self-conscious of, so it’s whether that is his thing or whether he just thinks ‘Oh well.’ It remains to be seen, doesn’t it?

Holly thinks it's better if healthcare professionals give a little bit of information about burn injuries at a time.

They didn’t tell me at the first appointment, ‘This is going to be a long journey’ because probably that would have been-, I was already so sort of traumatised by it happening, if they’d have said, ‘Well, we’ll still be seeing you in three years’ time’ that would have been an awful thing, I think, to know at the time. So, they probably did the right thing in that, like you said, they were sort of drip feeding a little bit the information.