27th September - Discharged from hospital...

I struggle to start all of these posts but this one is especially hard. 'Discharged' sounds so final but it was just the beginning really.
I had to see the doctors and they explained that we were keeping the wound/burn clear of infection with the dressings and letting it heal over because the skin grafts hadn't worked. Then they would look into more surgery in the future. I would be coming back to the Queen Elizabeth pretty much every week as I would have appointments with -

• Nurse clinic for dressing changes 
• My Burns consultant 
• My trauma&orthopedics consultant
• Xray's - Pelvis, hip, femur (thigh), wrist
• Physiotherapy
• Psychotherapy
• My Liver consultant
  
                                                       My new second home QEHB
  

I spent the day in hospital having blood tests and waiting for my prescriptions to go through for my medications to take home. I was eventually discharged at about 5pm. Mum helped me into some horrible tracksuit bottoms and a jumper and shoes! Pretty much hadn't worn clothes or shoes for 6 weeks.
I then went round to give cards to those I wanted to thank. I left one at the burns unit and then Joss took me round to Critical care unit C, the intensive care ward I was on. I had a card for the nurse I had on the Tuesday (the day I woke up) and the nurse I had on the Wednesday. It was scary going in there again because I didn't know what it looked like before I was either in a coma or barely conscious. On there you have one to one nursing and the state I was in I got very attached to those nurses. Then I went up to 412 my main 'home' for my time in hospital. I had a collective card and chocolates for the staff and one for my favourite nurse. It's hard to explain the attachment and not everyone who's been in hospital will have it, I think the extremely vulnerable mental and physical state I was in and my age meant they were more than medical carers to me.

I had my first post hospital cry when we got to the car, I realized I needed to pee and if I waited til I got home I would have to go in the commode in my new downstairs bedroom. Kindly Joss and mom took me back to hospital to use that toilet but it was sinking in what being at home was going to be like. Joss made a status 'Georgia's coming home!' it got 63 likes, but I wasn't happy to be home. I cried when I saw the ramps to get inside, I cried when I went into our beige dining room and there was a double bed with a back support a special table and the dreaded commode. I cried when I had to use the commode. Joss tried his best and got some scarves and photos from my real bedroom to try and make it better, I must of seemed so ungrateful but I was absolutely heart broken. I didn't know who I was anymore.

                                                  Not the actual commode I cant face that!

                                       The same luxury back support I have to have on my bed...

DRIVE SAFE, George xxx

Sunday 16th September - Moved to the Burns Unit...

  I had now been in hospital for exactly 4 weeks, most of which I had spent on the military trauma ward. I didn't want to be there but I had subconsciously become VERY attached to the ward namely the nurses. After my back was confirmed failed and infected it became clear that I needed to be moved to the hospitals burns unit for more specialist care. I needed to go but I didn't want to. When I left intensive care I was put in the Military trauma and orthopedics ward because I was a 'Poly-trauma' and had received SO many life threatening injuries - internal, external, structural...I had about 20 injuries.
  Anyway on Sunday the 16th September My mom had gone home and my step brother and his wife were visiting before my boyfriend Joss (rider of the bike) came in the evening. Half way through visiting my nurse for that day came in and told me they had a bed free on the burns unit so I was going down. I acted calm and OK because I didn't want to stress my brother out as they had to leave soon anyway. Inside I was freaking out though, I didn't want to leave my nurses that had become like a cross between medics and friends. I had LIVED in that room for almost 4 weeks, it was where I went when I was taken from the intensive care unit - a vulnerable, battered body that could barely speak.
  My nurse (the male one I mentioned last post) insisted on coming down with me to settle me in instead of just being taken by a porter. He stuck his head in before we went and said 'Im really going to miss you' and I could of cried it was such a strange emotion like I was leaving my family almost. He packed all my stuff up and I was taken to the unit on my bed so that I could keep the same bed. He took my wheelchair, transfer board and even the commode chair so I could have the same things.
  The burns unit is a unit not a ward. My room was still a private room and was in the high dependency area. It had no windows. The Burns unit is in the most appropriate place in the hospital in terms of critical care and theater proximity but this means there is no natural daylight. My room on 412 had a whole wall of glass, I could only see car park or road and I was so high up but it is invaluable. I even slept with my curtains open, you can't know claustrophobia until something like being completely trapped DYING underneath a car happens to you. So my room had NO windows it was literally a concrete box, the unit was a square with the nurses station/desk in the center like an island so even if my door was open I could just see a desk and more room doors. Upstairs I had my laptop so I could watch iplayer or look at facebook but here there was absolutely no signal even my phone could barely text. I was the only patient on the unit in a wheelchair with numerous broken bones as well as burns and wounds so I couldn't go off the unit unless it was visiting and I was able to get into my chair. I'll also point out that the toilet in my room which had the disabled sign on it was the size of a wardrobe so my wheelchair didn't fit and I had to remain buzzing to be put onto he commode and wheeled into the toilet and vise versa. It wasn't a bad place at all and you didn't have to pay for the telly (most wards like my other were about £20 for 3 days and I was in a LONG TIME) as there was no internet signal and the telly's weren't very reliable. That night was very hard, Joss left me his hoodie and as soppy as that sounds I really needed it. I was very lonely, my nurses were lovely but I didn't know them yet and they were reading my notes whereas upstairs had had me from ITU. I couldn't see anything but walls and I was so frightened they wouldn't let my mom in the next morning as she had special allowances on the trauma ward as I was so young and had so many injuries.
DRIVE SAFE, George x

Wednesday 5th September - 10th September Ups and DOWNS...

  It may read as though I'm skipping days throught this blog, I'm writing it from a diary my mom kept whilst I was in hospital to keep track of what happened when, for the solicitors.
  These were a stressful few days (everyday was but these more so...). On Wednesday the 5th September DAY 18 in hospital, my Vacum dressing was removed from my back (full thickness burn and graft) again. Once again this happened out of nowhere for me as a team of doctors, students and a consultant came into my room and talked about me to eachother while my nurse came in as fast as possible to try and get down what they were doing, so that I would know and so it would also be in my notes! They made me sit forward for this which was marginally better than being rolled but I had to hang on to my nurse to hold myself up and it killed my back, my pelvis, my legs everything. The removal itself hurt a lot, they peeled it off pretty fast but the thing is completley, air and water tight so it sticks pretty hard. They peered at the burn and muttered to themselves that it didnt look good 'here or here' but was probably 80% taken. That means 80% of the skin stapled onto the burn had survived and was doing well. They re-dressed it with a fabric dressing and special pads. They also pulled the dressings off my head, shoulder and hip and left them open for the nurse to try and figure out what they wanted doing with them! That was the first time I had seen my shoulder and hip injuries and they were pretty nasty. They called it 'road damage' or 'road burns' and basically where I had been dragged 10m under a car the tarmac had ripped through my jeans and 100% leather jacket and basically dragged and rubbed big patches of skin off me. My hip skin was hanging off and so was stitched back on and I have large areas of scar tissue which were once essentially gaping holes. The same happened to my head, my helmet was driven over and ripped up at some point and my scalp was rubbed away to my skull on the right side. Hense the hair removal, LUCKILY my hair has grown back through some of the scar tissue on my scalp and so they can cut out the remainder of scar tissue and pull it together to create a straight line scar. Which if you'd seen my head in A&E should be absolutley amazing!
  On Friday 7th September my wrist was comfirmed broken. One of the first things I recall when I came out of the coma was telling the nurses my wrist hurt (I couldnt feel my lower body so it didnt hurt at that time) they told me it was probably just a sprain because they had done a full body scan...Nope 3 weeks later it was 100% broken and put in plaster! Meaning I only had one un-damaged are (my left arm).
  Monday 10th September was heartbreaking really. It was DAY 23 and I was told I may be able to be transferred to a nearer hospital if I carried on progressing well, I was desperate to go home and really hoping for that. I met Mr VN (Im not sure if Im allowed to use his full name so I wont!) this day, he is a very senior burns and plastics consultant, he's also a wing commander in the army and runs private plastic surgery clinics in london. He had been told about me and wanted to take over as my burns consultant. He looked at my back, didn't order someone else to take off the dressings and actually spoke TO me! Sadly he took one look at my back and was absolutley certain the graft had completley failed and that the wound was becomming extremley infected. He was furious that someone had looked at it and told us it was 80% taken becuase it was 0% taken. They told me I'd have to go straight onto antibiotics, have my back treated everyday and when it was clear repeat the whole skin graft procedure. I was completley devastated I couldnt believe any of this had happened and just wanted to go back and never leave the house that day. I still do.
 

Thursday 23rd August and onwards MIlitary Ward...

 I suppose this entry is more of a sum up of the trauma ward before I go into anymore medical stuff.

The military ward was more bearable than intensive care, although that is not to take away from the incredible loving and life saving care I recieved in ITU.
 I was on level 4 - in bed 12 - on ward  412, I found that pretty cool (my stepdad found it too confusing...). I had my own room as I was the only girl and very high infection risk, this meant I had my own 'ensuite' although I didn't really get much use out of it! My mom was allowed to stay over for the first two nights on this ward and was given special permission to visit any time in the day for the whole of my stay. This was because I was so young, I was 19 at the time but that is the youngest age you can be in that hospital and as you can imagine I was very vulnerable physically and mentally and needed a lot of support.
  The staff on this ward were brilliant, most of them were fairly young and seemed to take a liking to me, this was probably because the ward consisted of crazy old men and soldiers and so I probably seemed very sweet! I was also surprised that a lot of the staff were quite horrified at what had happened to me as I thought they probably saw it a lot. The staff were a mix of military nurses and HCA's and civillian ones. This ward is where I found my favourite nurse, Laura (never thought I'd have one of those!). She was bloody brilliant, I first had her (you have a designated nurse each day) on Thursday 23rd August my first full day on 412. At this point I was still very confused, couldn't move an inch and didn't even want to eat. Part of the routine is a daily wash after breakfast, be that a shower by yourself or a bed bath you have to do it. I had become absolutley petrofied of anything that would mean I had to be rolled (I didn't even want to eat because if I needed the toilet I would have to be rolled onto a bed pan as I only had a cathater for urine, too much information I know!) But Laura came in with Lyndsey (lovely military HCA) and calmly explained they had to do it, it was agony but they chatted to me whilst washing me to try and keep me calm. Still amazes me how they change a bed with you on it! I had lots of lovely nurses for the 4 weeks I was on 412, I was rarely on my own but at night time they would pop in and stop to talk when they were doing my drugs or dressings or canulars. My time on this ward was when I was at my weakest and most vulnerable but past the very real possibility of dying.
I know it's their job but they did everything for me, bed baths, dressing changes, cathater control, canulars, IV's, drugs, bed pan, washing my hair in bed even when I couldnt lift my head, holding my hand, clearing up my awful skin graft infection, eventually pushing me to the toilet and washing me in the shower, dressing me when I could finally wear knickers!, feeding me, making me laugh Laura even shaved my legs before I decided it really didnt matter if I had hairy legs I was barely alive!

DRIVE SAFE, George xxx