Burn Injuries

I think my parents, I mean, I don’t know how much it changed the way they raised me, but I think there’s always kind of been a bit of a separation between the way they deal with, like, my burn injury and the way they deal with something else. So, like, if I was naughty my parents would tell me off but in respect to my burn injury, they’d always be really nice, so it's like, the way they treat that is different, like if it’s to do with my burn injury, you know, they’ll kind of do anything. It’s like “I won’t drive you to that party but if I need to drive you to hospital for your appointment, I’ll drive you.” So, I think there’s been a bit of a separation between the burn injury and everything, like the rest of raising me. So, I don’t think it’s impacted my relationship with them, but I think as I’ve gotten older, I think when I was younger my parents didn’t talk about it really at all, other than going to like going to hospital appointments and stuff, or talk about how it affected them. And now I’m older I think I’m learning a lot more about how it affected them, and it is quite like, heart-breaking because obviously, when I was younger I didn’t understand how much impact it had on them. So, I think as I’ve gotten older, like grown, I’ve always respected them for how much they’ve helped me, but I think as I’ve gotten older, it’s really grown in my respect of them dealing with that.

But I think, for them, it was really stressful because you worry about the worst for your child. Every parent wants the best for their child. So, I think they definitely worried a lot about me but, as a result, they’ve been insanely supportive and always very understanding and gone above and beyond. So, that’s been really helpful, and I actually think that parents of burn victims don’t really, or burns survivors don’t get enough credit because, really, they have to deal with so much. Like, watching your child go through that, I can’t even imagine what that’s like. And I just have so much respect for those people because ultimately, I think I’ve spoken to some people, and they’ve told me, you know “You’re so well-adjusted, I’ve met other people in your situation, you’re so well-adjusted” and I think actually your family can make such a massive difference to that or if you don’t have as good as a relationship with your family, any sort of support network you can find. But for me, having my parents definitely sort of helped me, and my brothers as well, definitely helped me, you know, live as best a life as I can. But I owe so much of that to them.

So, there was a lot of responsibility on my mum to care for me, just being discharged from hospital, and also a newborn baby. And I just think over the years of, you know, from a psychological point of view I think that would have had an impact in itself and that’s no-one’s fault, that’s just a circumstance and I think we’ve all, obviously, tried to do our best with that and cope with that. But I do think he had, because of that, a different start than I did. I was the firstborn child, and it was just me, Mum and Dad, so with no extra stress like that.

Going back to my brother, I also think another thing was the fact, obviously, how much support I’ve received and the opportunities that I’ve had because of that and, obviously, he wasn’t given them same opportunities. So, I went annually on the national burns camps, and I’ve really thrived at them, and I made friends, and I had a brilliant time because of it. And, although we would have gone on family holidays, I just think that’s always something that I’ve done that he didn’t have the experience of having. Which is why it’s good that now they do, do family weekends. Not everyone, obviously, can go on them but it’s good that people get the opportunity to mingle, so that’s, you know, mums mingling with other mums and dads etc and siblings mixing with other siblings and kind of getting to see what it’s all about and getting support they need as well.

I think my parents took a very different approach to what a lot of parents do, I think, in that they were very much focusing on function and they were like ‘No, we don’t want any extra stuff’, you know, looking on aesthetics, whatever, they were like ‘Let’s just sort out function, what’s going to help her move better, what’s going to help her feel better’ that sort of thing. So, actually, there’s probably a lot of procedures that my parents bypassed throughout the years because they were like ‘Is that going to improve her, you know, ability to live, to move, to just do life? No. Mm, she can decide that when she’s an adult.’ So, I think, you know, I think their thing was, do the surgeries that were necessary, do the surgeries that would help but not do unnecessary surgery. And I think I’ve kind of carried that through to my adult life that, actually, I focus very much on what’s going to help me with movement, what’s going to help me with the tightness that I feel, instead of ‘Oh that bit’s a bit redder than the other, let’s do some surgery on it’.

So definitely a lot more anxious. And because something that significant happened to me as a child, my worst-case scenario. You know, when you're younger, you just think, you know, there's nothing worse that can happen to me than to go through that burn again, you know. And then you have kids and you think, yes, it would be for my child to go through that. So yeah, so for me, it's just been trying to get their health, a healthier balance of trying to keep them protected, but also actually knowing that okay, what happened to me was awful, but it shouldn't affect the way my kids see the world. So that's, again, that's a work in progress. That's something that we, me and my partner, sort of talk about a lot, and it's just something that will keep re-correcting I think as we do it.

So probably in some ways it may have been good for us in parenting because it’s made us much more aware of mental health. So, it’s kind of like we know what we don’t want our kids to experience, but it’s also helped us to try and learn a little bit more about how things affect them. And... and, yeah, and what we need to do.

I think the important thing was that the friends were themselves with me and treated me in the way that they would normally treat me. If they’d normally laugh at me for something, then fine, carry on doing that for this. If you’d normally be sort of a really understanding and thoughtful person then, if you laugh at me now then it’s going to seem a bit wrong. But as long as you’re consistent with how you’ve been with me before, I think that was what was important.

And there was one particular, and then friends, equally, you know, calling and, once again, didn’t always want to talk to them, but it was lovely to think of them supporting me. And even remote friends. So, I know that, for example, not a close friend at all, but the mother of one of my son’s friends, brought round a shepherd’s pie, which was lovely. And another friend that I haven’t seen for, maybe, I haven’t seen for maybe five years, sent me a card saying, “Heard what’s happened to you, really sorry to hear it, sending my love.” And that was really lovely, thinking “Gosh, all these people I haven’t seen or heard from for ages are thinking about me.” And that made a big, big difference. And it’s, that’s another way that it’s changed me now, I think. Because I know how much that meant to me and so every time, I hear about somebody I know, even somebody I know I haven’t spoken to for seven years, if something awful has happened to them, like they’ve lost a partner or, they’ve had an accident, I always get in touch in some way. Usually not by ringing them, to feel that they have to speak to me, but via digital media or via a card or via something, because I know how much that meant to me – huge amount.

I’ve just kind of been lucky that, I guess again, they’ve always known and grown up with me. When I was burnt I was in Year One and I had a really close friend who’s still my best friend.

On reflection, maybe it built our friendship stronger, because I went back to school and I’d missed so much of it, but I felt like I still had her, so I didn’t lose that close friendship that I had. And then, from that, we just, because we’re still friends and we’ve got a friendship group so, I guess, I’ve always had a close friend and then, from that, we’ve kind of made friends with loads of other people.

She’s kind of been there throughout the whole of my recovery and I guess she’s always, you know, so if I go in for laser or something I’d speak to her about it just as much as I’d speak with my burn friends that I’ve met through other things like that. So, it is good to have someone who’s been there throughout on a friendship basis as well.

So, I’ve always been someone who, as I said, I’ve been quite outgoing, and I’ve always been able to find quite a good group of friends around me and everywhere I’ve kind of gone I’ve always tried to make a little circle of people who I know kind of have my back and are there for me and supportive. And I think that having that has always meant that I’ve never really dealt with that much bullying or that kind of, you know, I’ve never really been horribly bullied or anything like that and I think that’s because I’ve been lucky enough to have a really good group of friends around me.

But, yeah, generally having a good friendship group and that support system is always good just, you know, for the minor things but also if something, if I have to have a surgery, like my friends have always been very good at making sure I’m ok and checking up on me and that kind of thing.