Raffaella

Age at interview: 42

Brief Outline:

Raffaella was burnt a couple of years ago after she brushed past a candle and her dress caught fire. Her hands, arms, and part of her face were burnt in the accident.

Background:

Rafaella works full-time in a hospital. Het ethnicity is White Italian.

More about me...

Raffaella was meditating at her home and had lit some candles. As she brushed past one of the candles, her dress caught alight and began to burn. A neighbour heard her screaming and knocked on her door to check she was ok. An ambulance was called and Raffaella remained standing under running water until it arrived. When paramedics arrived, she was taken to hospital and given morphine in the ambulance to help with the pain.

When she arrived at the hospital Raffaella was assessed by nurses. Because she had been under cool, running water, Raffaella’s temperature was low and needed to be brought back to a normal level. Once her temperature was regulated and a cannula inserted into her foot, Raffaella was taken to a ward where her burns were cleaned.

A couple of days later, Raffaella had an allograft (a skin graft with skin from an organ donor). She was “so grateful” to the organ donor who’s skin had been used. Around a week later, Raffaella had a skin graft where skin was taken from the top of her thigh and grafted onto an area which had been burnt.

At times, Raffaella felt “angry” and struggled to accept what had happened to her. She found it frustrating that healthcare staff were sometimes unable to answer her questions about what the future may look like. Raffella said she didn’t realise at first that recovering from burns would be “a long journey”.

Raffaella received support from The Katie Piper Foundation. She was offered physical rehabilitation and received the help of a personal trainer to help her regain her mobility. Mindfulness sessions were also offered by The Katie Piper Foundation and Raffaella said were helpful, especially during such an isolating time such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Raffaella was burnt during the Covid-19 pandemic, so services were not operating as usual. This was even more difficult as in addition to recovering from a burn injury, Raffaella’s Mum sadly died. Losing her Mum made Raffaella put her burn injury into perspective, she said having a burn was “not a big deal” compared to her Mum passing away.

In the beginning, Raffaella worried what people may think of her and if they would judge her. In time, she has been able to adopt an attitude of not worrying what people think and has learnt to not be so critical of herself.

Raffaella’s advice to other people recovering from a burn injury is “to not think too far ahead”. She also advises that it is ok to “whinge” and feel negative about the situation, though suggests thinking about “how much time do you want to spend doing that?”.

Raffaella said being burnt taught her to take each day one at a time.

That’s the thing, one of the biggest lessons is that I think once something so catastrophic happens to your body, you can only take it one day at a time. I mean, it is for emotional things as well, I guess, for much, anything this traumatic in life, but for me, it was like I wanted a resolution, I wanted to hurry up, I just wanted to wish the process away. But then, looking back – and even though I’m only a year and a half – you just think that the process is what makes you. And it’s not that I enjoyed it, it’s not it was great, and I would do it again, but somehow, you know, instead of wishing it away, you’re still alive, you’re still living in the moment and if you wish them away, you’re wishing your life away, even if it’s not perfect.

I’m not saying that I’m a master now whatsoever but, you know, you try every day. Yeah. And it makes me also think it’s like I was so lucky that, you know, I don’t like my hands and I think “Oh my God, they look so ugly, and everybody looks at them” but then, I’m thinking “No, it’s not true. You’re just …” you know you feel that way and a feeling doesn’t make it real, you know? A feeling is just a feeling, the reality is something else, actually it’s not that bad. So, that’s an important reminder as well, that what I feel is temporary and it’s just how I feel, it is not necessarily a reflection of what is true. And plus, you know, we’re fragile things. Like, who is going to make it out of life completely intact?

Soon after her burn, Raffaella wasn’t able to attend any in-person support groups because of Covid-19 restrictions. At first, she felt like the only person with a burn injury.

Yeah, and I think that’s what was missing. Like, I think um, for me like I was obsessively looking for that and I think if it would have been a normal time where there were support groups where you can actually meet face-to-face and create friendship, you know, it would have made a massive difference on the loneliness and the emotional side of it. So, that is something that, I think … I find it’s quite crucial when there’s something that uh… like this happened that you’re going to experience about. Like an illness, I guess, like any … any things that happen, any trauma to your body, any illness that you can have, I think if you can relate with people that go through the same things, it’s like it makes it a tiny bit more bearable, it makes you feel less alone. Makes you feel like you’re not the only one. Funny, like when something happens to you, whatever that is, a burn or anything, all of a sudden, you know, you just realise ‘I’ve never seen anyone burnt, I don’t remember, I must be the only one.’ And then, selectively your brain started to notice it around you and realise, actually, you’re not the only one. So, I think a support circle, I think is quite important.

Raffaella received support from The Katie Piper Foundation.

And then, I also got in contact with the Katie Piper Foundation, and they were amazing, they supported me a lot. They offered me – especially like my physical rehabilitation, not so much for the in person, but my whole body, considering what it’s been through, they helped, you know, with yoga, with personal training. I had, like the physiotherapist. They had time to listen to me and my problems because the physiotherapists at the hospital, they are so busy, they’ve got one patient after the other. It’s not that they don’t know, and they don’t mean to, but generally they cannot spend the quality time with you to go through any cream or help you to write a letter to your GP so they can prescribe the cream or insist that while they’ve really taken the time for me and I think complementing the therapy I was having at the hospital, I think it was quite invaluable. And they helped me with, I mean like mindfulness sessions as well, which, do you know, because it happened in such a time where you feel so isolated.

Raffaella initially had a skin graft using skin from an organ donor.

So, if they asked me before that I would have put cadaveric skin on myself and wrap it all up and keep it there, I would have gone ‘You must be crazy’ but when that happened and they explained to me what it, why it was to, you know, make sure that my wound bed was much better, when I would have received my own skin from somewhere else, then I was just so grateful for this dead person… you know that they actually donated skin for somebody in my condition. Yeah, so … I was terrified of having dressing change and it was like, enough obviously as my skin peeled off, but then I was wrapped up until the next operation and then I didn’t have to have a dressing until after I had a proper skin graft.

Raffaella exercised her hand as the burn healed. She also used creams, massaged the skin, and tried other things like acupuncture and vitamins.

I think, in a way, I was lucky that the scars are in my hands, because, like, you’ve got to do so much stretching and exercise, especially at the beginning. But because it’s in your hands you can just do it, I guess, like they’re always in front of you, you can just be constantly… And in fact anybody that saw me, I- "You are just constantly stretching, any awaken time", you know. And that does not come without any pain, it’s excruciatingly painful to stretch when the scar’s actually growing so much in the beginning and everything is swollen. But I was determined not to give up because, obviously, the physiotherapists, the OT (occupational therapists) were like, you know, ‘You need to adjust to your new normal, and your new normal might be very different from your…’ I’m just like ‘I’m 42, I am going to do…’, like- I understand of change and I understand it’s not going to be the same as before, but to the extreme these people are saying I might not be able to use the full use of my hands, so it’s like ‘Ok, if it happens it happens, but I’m definitely going to do my very best not to make it happen.’ So, I was absolutely determined that I would do anything, you know, to… And I did, I did. I made sure I stretched constantly, I creamed it, I wore my silicone all the time, like there was not a day that I didn’t wear it, a minute, apart from when I was washing. I would massage, I went to acupuncture, I took all the vitamins, you know, got a massage gun to… So, anything I knew that could’ve helped, I’ve done it.

Raffaella had a burn injury 18 months ago and doesn’t feel comfortable dating currently. She feels she has lost her “femininity” and “sexuality” but hopes the way she feels about relationships will change with time.

Yeah, I mean, there are things like, for example, I don’t know if I’m ever going to have a boyfriend ever again because I have got this conviction that no-one is ever going to like to hold my hand, and this again, this is just a feeling, it doesn’t make it true but, you know, that’s the feeling that I’m not… You know, I am… I am… not good enough. Why would you have me when you can have someone that’s got beautiful hands where you can put a ring on, not that I want a ring, to be honest! But like, you know, things like that. I’m such a cliché that you just think that’s not, that’s not really life. Yet, the brain has kind of done this, this arrangement where it thinks, you know, don’t even uh… Don’t even act like you’ve got any sort of femininity, sexuality because that’s just embarrassing yourself. And that’s a bit sad. So, I hope it is something that I work through, you know, over the time, with time very slowly.

Right now, the way I see it, I know that I feel like I’m never going to be able to do it. But I know that is not necessarily going to be true. That’s what it feels like now, things will change. Only a year and a half has gone past. In six years, surely if I’m still alive I’ll probably think different. My skin will have changed a lot more and it might not be so visible, and also, I mean, it is a great filter on a conscious level I’m like ‘Sorry, but if somebody doesn’t want you because of that, that’s not the person you want anyway.’ So, it’s a great filter for, you know, for people that actually you do not want. And yet, there is this vanity in me, you know, that sort of wanted to… Yeah, wanted it to look nice and it’s just like, it’s about shedding these old views.

Raffaella said her identity doesn’t revolve around being a “burn survivor”.

Sometimes I do like, I find it, when I say, ‘burn survivor’, it’s too much of a big word to say about myself, because  I’m really not that burned, like compared to, I mean, yeah, of course I was going to survive, like it was 20% of my body, wasn’t like 60/90. But you did still survive, you know, in a literal term, you did survive a burn, like, doesn’t mean that you’re still alive, you survived it even emotionally, psychologically.