Burn Injuries

Initially I think they used animal skin or something as a temporary cover for some of it and then, over time they just did a bunch of full thickness grafts. So, they took skin from my back, the bottoms of my legs. They had to shave my head and take the skin from my head in order to slowly graft over all the injured area, and that was kind of like the initial surgery. But then there was a lot of years of coming back and having to get stuff redone or regrafted, especially because, I’m sure you’ll hear from other people, but scars don’t grow, so when you have them when you’re really young you’re wearing a, it’s like putting on a t-shirt that you got when you were three years old, it just gets tighter and tighter. So, I had to have more surgeries as I grew up.

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.

Again, the actual operation, I would say, is probably the easiest part. I found that the actual recovery of a skin graft is harder, mainly because the itchiness, you know, it’s the skin graft, where they’ve taken that, itches a lot more I’d say than the actual recovery of where they’d put that skin. So, it’s a process, as I say, when I had it done, they stapled the skin to me, so it would be a case of letting them staples heal and then going back and having staples removed which, again, is quite a painful process. It’s quite an amazing, you know, in terms of how that actually works but, yeah, it can be quite painful.

When I went back as well for my final operation that was also a skin graft so, again, it takes a while for that skin to heal again and for you to be able to then get your movement back but, definitely the skin graft is something that takes, I would say is more of the challenging part of that healing process. The area where they take the skin usually heals up quite nicely in terms of you don’t have a scar left afterwards. When I look at my legs, because they took it from my legs on patches from each side so I can faintly see, I can tell where them patches are but, you know, on the whole it’s healed really nicely. With the latest one I had done, which would have been, I’d say about eight years ago now, that is you still see that quite a bit, but I’m just hoping, as I say, as the years go by that will fade as well, so yeah. Otherwise, I look a bit like a patchwork doll.

To be honest I can't remember how long I wore them for, probably a year maybe, or maybe it would have been longer, the pressure garments. Because I kind of had a little jacket which had a long sleeve for this arm and a short sleeve for that one. Yeah, I think, nothing on the bottom, so it was just like a little bodice jacket thing with a zip, but it was pretty tight because it was supposed to be, you know, flattening out the scars. And it was hot in the summer.

Just wearing this pressure garment was the main thing. And then we would go back in for check-ups, and I guess to... I don't really remember check-ups, I remember going into this room that was kind of like where they made these garments. It was like a big, loads of sewing machines. It was kind of like the specialist bit of the hospital where they did that, and I guess I would have had to have new ones regularly because I was growing. I guess that was that what that was for, but I don't even know how long I wore it.

Dad: But the stretchy trousers were a kind of suggestion from one of the nurses, it’s like ‘Well, try these before we go down the compression bandage route because, actually they’re all bespoke, they all take time to make, so not particularly comfortable, whereas the stretchy trousers we’ve had success with. Try them, see what happens. If it doesn’t work, we’ll still go down that option but, you know, for your benefit try them, because you can have a dozen pairs of stretchy trousers from whichever running shop in question, you can wash them every day. Whereas your bespoke bandages you’re getting one and … and when it breaks, we get you another one.’

William: It’s like, so the first pair of…

Dad: Running trousers, weren’t they?

William: Yeah, running trousers, they had a pocket in the back of them, which wasn’t very comfortable because the zip kept on digging into me. So, basically my mum bought some which didn’t have pockets in and they were much more comfortable.

William: You’re supposed to wear them 23 hours a day. And they were actually really impressed because I wore them 23.5 hours a day, just that short amount of time, to actually shower and get changed. The rest of the time I was wearing them.

So, you were happy to wear them a lot?

Yeah, they’re comfortable.

Just itchy and un-comfy. So, they had kind of zips down the side so you have to kind of get them on, and then you zip them down the side, so they're really tight around your lower legs. And then I just remember like that would be so sore, where the zip was, they'd always be embedded and you like you'd want to itch it and you just didn't have the full range of, they're just, obviously they're just really tight. So just not particularly nice and they don't look very nice either, so just, I suppose, for that. Like it's not the worst thing again in the whole, but it's just another thing that gets added to it.

Yeah, so that I think it's a year for pressure garments. And you do really want to burn them, and they have to change them quite regularly and I suppose for me because I would have been growing at the same time. So, and I can't even tell you how often but what you'd have they come in quite often then you get re-measured and then you get new ones sent out. But then you couldn't. So they're kind of made a new, they're like stockings really where they haven't got a gusset in there, so you can't even, you don't take them off when you go to the toilet. They're just supposed to just, you know, you've got your underwear on top of them. So, it's just all of it. Not particularly nice.

Yeah, because I do remember the pressure vest being a hideous thing for me and I remember being in floods of tears when they were fitting me with it and thinking ‘Do I really have to wear this for a year?’ or whatever they told me, ‘I can’t believe it this is just affecting the next year of my life...' And so, when I was travelling on public transport, even though you couldn’t see my burn injuries, I thought people could see that pressure vest somehow and I felt different.

I’ll tell you the story of one person I met, I think it was at the very first burns group I attended, when I was wearing this pressure vest and I was still thinking 'How on earth am I going to live every day in this bloody thing?'. And there was a guy there who’d probably been burnt two years before, and because we were going back the same way – he was a lot younger than me – but because we were going back the same way, we’d get on the same train. Aand I was talking to him about this pressure vest and, you know, how on earth am I going to live with it, and he told me this story which still makes me smile today, which he said “Well, you do kind of forget about it, it becomes part of you, you kind of forget about it". He said, “About nine months after I’d been wearing mine…” and his was on his leg, he said “I met my now wife. And, you know, we were getting undressed, and she said, “What on earth is that on your leg?” and I’d completely forgotten that I had it there”. So, that made me think 'Perhaps I will forget this thing', because at the time it was just in my head 100% of the time, the minute I woke up until the minute I went to bed, 'I cannot bear this thing on me'. And his, the conversation with him made me think 'Oh, maybe I will eventually forget it’s there, like he did'. So, it was meeting people like that at the burns group, who’d been through it all, who weren’t particularly suffering now but who had suffered in the past, that really helped me.

I wouldn’t say it wasn’t a relief to have it off eventually, but I completely lived my life not having it in my head 100% of the time, that I could do things normally, I could work, I could live my life without constantly thinking about it.

I remember the doctor coming in just saying, "Do you smoke?" I said, "Yeah." And I think he said to me, "Such a silly thing to do – 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.

So essentially, obviously, when you smoke, the nicotine sort of constricts your blood vessels. So less blood flow will go to the veins. They were saying the more blood supply you have, the less likely you are to need the skin graft because to begin with it, was looking... they wanted there and then to just say ‘Right, you’re going down for a skin graft’ but I was just so... I don’t know. I guess I’ve always got off quite well – and I’ve broken hands and whatnot before – and I’ve sort of always managed to just handle it if that made sense. And so, I did... I was very reluctant to have 'two injuries for one'.

I can’t exactly put my finger on why I was so adamant, maybe it was, I didn’t quite understand the skin graft. I think that probably was part of it, and also sort of... I guess when you think of a skin graft, it... it makes it quite serious, and I think I was just still in the mindset 'This isn’t serious, this isn’t serious'. You know, it’s not... that’s probably what was in my mind as I kept going. And so, you know, I probably... I’m thankful now knowing... knowing that it would heal, I face I got to give up smoking and the fact, you know, I’m definitely pleased with the decision I made, but I wouldn’t be as opposed to it if like, you know, let’s say the week or so afterwards and I went back and I said right, you still need skin graft. I don’t think I’d have just been like down right no, I’m not having it, you know. I would have gone for it. I think I just... I guess in in my head, I wanted to give it a chance.