things that suck.

You may have noticed that I haven't really touched much on the negative aspects of this journey I'm on... well, there's a reason for it. And, as much as I would love to say it's because I'm a strong person and I've been optimistic and positive throughout the entire experience - that's simply not true.

The real reason I haven't blogged much about the dark side of things is that I hate reliving those moments. It's bad enough to go through them once first-hand, the last thing I want to do is sit down at my computer afterwards and write about them. So, I've been waiting for the right moment to address some of the things I simply couldn't handle along the way and now (at 3AM when I'm wide awake) seems like as good a time as any. 

Just a Couple of Things that Suck (I could write more, but I'll spare you):

1. Showers. 

Showers used to be one of my favorite things in the world. You come home after a long day, pull off all your clothes, and just stand there letting the warm water run down your neck and wash away all the tensions from your life. Then, you put on your jammies of choice and curl up under the covers with some trash tv until bedtime. Instead, here is my shower process these days:

• preparation. take approx. 15 mins beforehand to lay out supplies on your bed for bandaging post-shower.
• bandage removal. remove clothes, then carefully remove all 3 layers of bandages - oh, but be careful because sometimes your wound may stick to a bandage and if you mistakingly pull that off prepare for the worst pain you've felt in days. if this ever happens, it's smarter to just get in the actual shower with your bandages on and hope the water will soak in enough to allow the bandage to slide off instead of having to rip your skin off along with it. 
• run a lukewarm shower - not too hot, because you don't want to irritate the wounds. fml, i love hot showers.
• make a game plan. figure out your process, and then get everything besides wound cleaning out of the way. meaning, if you need to wash your hair, body, or shave - you need to hurry the fck up and get those things out of the way so you can get to the real reason you're showering...
• clean your wounds. ew ew ew. i can not even type this one without cringing. it is literally as gross as it sounds, and i have so much respect for anyone who has ever had to do this at home. i've found that a gauze pad works well, so i open a fresh gauze pad during each shower, squeeze a little mild soap (such as dove unscented, or ivory) onto it, then lightly wipe and pad down each of my wounds. 
• i feel it's important for anyone else going through this to mention that i HATE touching my wounds in the shower. even though I don't have to physically touch them with my hands, just the sensation of something gliding over it gives me the 'heebie-jeebies' (sp?). it is by far the worst part of my day and for the last month I've felt like my life revolves around bandage changes. I  can not wait until everything closes up and I just have to deal with keeping it moisturized. 
• dry your body - but not the wounds, you don't want to touch open wounds with a nasty towel that's probably been sitting on your toilet or sink while you shower. 
• get back to the supplies. mine are typically laid out on my bed, which means i have to get from the bathroom to my bedroom with a towel loosely draped over me while i hold the front out making sure nothing touches my wounds. it's awkward.
• bandaging - which leads me to my second thing that sucks….

2. Bandage Changes.

OMFG. You.have.no.idea. Literally the death of me. Once this is all over I will be so grateful to just put on clothing in the morning and walk out of my house. Experiences like these really make you appreciate being a normal healthy human. It's like when you're all sick and stuffy, and you appreciate being able to breathe regular - but only 100 times worse. Anywho, I won't walk you though the whole process of bandaging, that's not the shitty part. The shitty part is how you feel the entire time. 

Showers suck enough on their own, then once you're out bandaging takes another 15-20 mins. The entire time I'm cleaning my wounds and bandaging them I'm also using 95% of the energy in my body to keep myself from crying, clenching my teeth, and trying to convince myself this is almost over. My mom has learned to go in the other room during this time, because I've dubbed it my 'quiet time'. I can't speak, or listen to anyone. In fact I can't really do anything at all other than the task at hand. 

It itches.

It hurts.

It oozes.

It's sensitive.

It's ugly.

It's bleeding.

It's everything bad in the world and my skin is crawling the entire time.

Once it's over I literally have to lay down, exhale, and just unwind for a few moments. I'm completely drained, but it's over. And until the next bandage change (in 12 hours) I can try to take my mind off things. 

project runway: ICU edition.

I'm going to try and keep most of my posts short & sweet, because really… who wants to hear me ramble on for pages and pages!? That being said, I thought this particular topic was well worth a post. I was in the ICU for a total of 12 days, and had to have my bandages changed twice daily = 26 different outfits in whole.

One of my greatest joys (there weren't many -_-) while in the hospital was being able to observe how each nurse dressed me up differently. It really is worthy of a reality TV show, these ladies have #skillz. There were layers on layers of bandages, but my outer most layer was always made of this fabric called 'spandage' - a combination of spandex & bandage. I tell ya these advertising people and their ingenuity when it comes to branding product names. Kudos pharma people, kudos. Anywho, its tubular, stretchy as fck, and comes in like 20 different sizes - anywhere from your finger to your torso. 

I truly wish I had taken more photos, but here are just a few of the highlights from my stay:
(a couple times i had to take things into my own hands and get crafty after the nurses left. it was sooo warm in my room, I hated when the tops were too close to my neck *insert sweating emoji here*) 

Off the top of my head, I also remember having: a tube top with spaghetti straps, a sleeveless turtleneck, a deep-v tank top, and vest. My fave was likely the 'garter belt' look on the left. White mesh is very in for spring, don't be surprised if you see Rihanna wearing something similar in an upcoming show. 

Now that I'm home I've even added some ribbons to keep things fun. It's the cheerleader inside of me. Yayyyy team! GoOooOOoo skin! Grow grow grow! Honestly, somehow making the bandages prettier and feminine really helped me mentally. It's made things more fun to take part in, and less like work. :)

the dummies guide to burn phases.

ok, so I'm not a doctor … but for an long as i was in the ICU and as many nurses as i ran through, I don't think I'm too far off by calling myself somewhat of a 'burn expert'.

here's what i like to think of as the 4-step process for burns:


Step 1: 'The Thick White Gooey Layer' (aka Eschar)
This is the layer you see in a lot of my early photos. It's basically dead skin that's piling up on top of you're healthy skin, and will eventually either peel or kind of just disintegrate off… in the doctor's opinion the  faster the better! I actually still have a couple areas that have a tiny bit of eschar (pronounced: 's'-char) left, and not real thrilled about it seeing how i have a check-in at the hospital tomorrow. You can't force it off either. It just comes off when it's ready.

In fact, it's when these areas don't come off after about 10-14 days that the doctor's really begin to lean towards skin grafting. At the 10 day mark i had a few small areas of eschar left, but decided to take my chances and attempt to nurse my skin back to health on it's own by forgoing surgery/grafting for the moment. Initially when I was admitted to the ICU they wanted to graft my entire stomach, thigh, and part of my hand - but miraculously within 10 days I was down to just a few small concerning areas. The doctor's had very mixed opinions on me forgoing surgery, but I felt strongly about the fact I'm young, healthy, and active... and seeing how far my skin had come over the first 10 days I wanted to give it a bit more time. If it turns out that within a couple more weeks my remaining skin isn't coming back on it's own I'll revisit the idea then.


Step 2: 'Little Bumpy Patches' (aka Budding)
You can see this pretty clearly in a lot of my photos.. the little pink/red bumpy clusters. It's a great sign, it means the eschar has gone, and your hair follicles & nerve endings are coming back in … hooray! It's exciting and painful at the same time. Seeing how your nerve endings are exposed taking showers and changing bandages can be less than pleasant. Oh, and sleeping… yea, sleeping blows. But in the end it means you're on your way to new skin, which makes the doctors, nurses, and myself very pleased. Yay for little buds!

Step 3: 'Smooth Pink Skin'
At this point, your wounds are closed, there's no more bleeding or sloughing of tissue, and you're just left with discolored pink/red/purple skin. It's great because you don't hurt for the most part any more, the pain is behind you, but it sucks because now things turn into a bit of a waiting game. It could take anywhere from 8 months to a year for your skin to go back to 'normal' or as normal as it's ever going to get. You'll see a lot of my stomach is at this point now. In fact, I don't even have to cover those areas on my stomach or my hand with bandages any more. I just use Lubriderm on my hand and ointment on my stomach. Once all the other areas catch up (hopefully the next week or two), I'll just be using Lubriderm/cocoa butter for the next few months multiple times a day to keep the areas moisturized. Moisture is key to healthy new skin, and minimal scarring.

Step 4: 'Normal Skin'
I suppose I shouldn't use the term 'normal', like… what does normal even really mean? But, essentially this last phase is when your skin reaches it's peak of healing. Typically doctors say it takes 1 full year for you to recover from a burn of this nature, which also means no sun for me this summer (moment of silence for all the exotic caribbean vacations i had planned) *le sigh*.



As of right now my skin is mostly a mix of step 2 & 3, with just a bit of step 1 still lingering.
Hope this helps you decipher my photos, as well as helps anyone going through something similar prepare for what's to come. The nurses really didn't lay this process out for me so clearly, and I wish someone would have. Live & learn.

the pics you've all been waiting for. eek.

fun fact of the day: burns get worse over time. like, a lot worse.

so what my mother referred to as "saggy panty hose skin" in my pics from day one, quickly escalated to something out of a hollywood movie's special effects make-up department. I assumed that on that first night they would remove all of my dead skin layers, and then underneath would be something like a bad sunburn. I mean, that happens right? You get burnt in the sun, your skin peels… then bam a couple days of aloe vera gel on your skin and you're back to normal.

Yea, well…. that's not exactly what happen. Shit got real, really fast. You may also understand better as to why I was kept in the ICU for 12 days & have been out of work recovering for the past 3 weeks after looking at the photos below. If you're faint of heart, or have a weak stomach feel free to scroll past the pics.

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here's my stomach:
(#sidenote - they pump you FULL of protein shakes to help your skin regenerate while you're in there. so, i may or may not have gained weight slash been bloated... just saying.)

my thigh, which is the worse of my burns:

& my hand, which sadly I didn't take pics of in the beginning but really healed at an insane pace:
(please peep the #nailgame as well, always on point… even in the ICU.)

Note that a lot of the 'Day 21' pics of my stomach and thigh are actually from today. I took them this morning when changing my bandages. I'm not exactly out of the weeds just yet… but I'm getting there.
Percocet, ointments, and positive vibes go a long way.

ps. my next post, entitled 'the dummies guide to burn phases' should help you decipher exactly what's going on in the above pics.

the girl on fire.

So, after 12 days in ICU, countless protein shakes, 2 doses of morphine, 26 injections of fentanyl, 3 IV's, 120+ doses of dilaudid, 16 antibiotic drips, 54 percocets (and counting), and 1 ambulance ride through manhattan later …. here I am.

I've decided after much consideration that I'm going to blog about my experience, mainly for the following reasons:

1. when i was in the hospital i could barely find ANY sources to relate to. wtf. people literally blog about ANY and EVERYTHING, but finding someone who put their experience with burns online is near impossible. It sucked. I felt alone, and googling images of "3rd degree burns" and/or "skin grafts" will really push you over the edge.
2. hopefully this will be therapeutic.
3. i know a lot of my friends/family members are actually interested in seeing the photos of my burns, but I don't feel comfortable putting them up on social media for the world to see. this way i can provide people with a link, and it can be their decision to look or not.

Great. So now that that's all out of the way lets get to it.

Today marks my 1 week anniversary of being discharged from the hospital. I suppose I should start this thing off with how I got there in the first place though. In all honestly, I really do hate telling the story. It puts me in a bad place mentally, and gives me anxiety - so if you see me in the coming months, try and avoid the instinctive questioning of "omg, how did this happen? tell me the whole story"

#protip: when visiting people who went through something traumatic in the hospital, avoid questioning how they got there and making them go back to the moment it happen. Instead, take their mind off of things and distract them by discussing current events, or dishing gossip from your every day life. It's better to think about the future and getting healthy vs. the dwelling on the incident itself.

For the sake of this blog and opening up though, I'll humor you with the censored version:

• i was attempting to "caramelize" onions - if you know me, you know i do NOT cook.
• so, i was following the instructions that i had pulled up on my handy macbook air
• the olive oil was heating up in the pan on medium heat, but it never began to sizzle as it was supposed to
• then it started producing a sort of cloudy white smoke and i thought 'hmm, that's not good. maybe i should lower the heat.'
• as soon as i went to lower the heat the pot burst into flames. i'm not sure if the flames came from the actual pot, or the coils, or what … but it was a lot of fire and i know my immediate thought was "omg I'm going to burn down this entire building". I had visions of all of my cabinets going up in flames and i immediately knew NOT to put water onto an oil fire as it would only make things worse.
• so, for some reason or another, i grabbed the flaming pan. i was thinking that if i could remove it from the heat maybe the fire would go out.
• without going into too much detail (because I don't feel comfortable doing so at this time) basically, my clothes went up in flames, my skin started bubbling on my abdomen, hand, and thigh like something out of a Terminator movie and i instantly began screaming for help. thankfully my neighbor was home and after banging on her door and screaming for what seemed like eternity (but was likely about 45 seconds) she came to my rescue - to which i stared at her, clothing tattered, skin sloughing off, house full of smoke, and said "idk what to do, should i call 911????". she obviously said "yes" and i handed over my cell phone.
• i immediately stripped down and got into a cool shower. no, it didn't hurt - it actually was soothing and it's the best thing to do if you ever get burned. it can even help minimize scarring and the burn from getting any deeper by rinsing off the skin. 
• my neighbor manned the phones and i shouted any info she needed.
• help was on the way, at which point i realized… 'I'm naked, shit.' 
• the dispatcher on the phone said i could put clothes on, then soak towels in cold water and wrap them on me. i was like -___- 'yea, how about you go fck yourself.' there was NO way i was getting clothing on.
• so, i did what any good south floridian would do - i asked my neighbor to go in my room, dig in the top drawer of my dresser, and bring me my string bikini.
• in the past few weeks many people have said how unbelievable it was that i was that cognizant in the moment. i'm not really sure how i was able to communicate with her and provide all the info, but i think in the moment i just knew i needed to get everything out and then i could let go.

 & so 2 doses of morphine and 1 ambulance ride later, there i was at the Cornell Presbyterian Hospital in my leopard string bikini in the middle of winter in NYC. Oh, I should also mention there was a film crew present, because of course - they would be filming a new show for ABC, and obviously i signed my life away while i was high on pain killers. #yolo

Below are some pics from Day 1.
I thought i was just being held "over night for observation" and things would be fine come Monday, I could not have been more wrong.