Day 2 in KU Medical center burn unit

Well I made it through the first night.  Not without a lot of pain though.  I had a lot of breakthrough pain and had to call the nurse several times for pain meds to get me through the night.  They were talking about letting me go home today, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea.  My legs looked ok after changing my bandages.  The PA believes I have 2nd degree burns on both legs but there are a couple spots she is worried cold be 3rd degree.  We will have to wait and see.  As of right now, I will not need skin grafts.  

The nurses and PA came in and put compression stockings on j legs to keep the swelling down, but OMG it hurt so bad.  I went to go to the bathroom and thank god my sisters were with me because I started to pass out from the pain of the compression stockings.  My sisters got me back to bed and the nurses came in and cut off the stockings.  They tried to reward them again, but the same thing happened again.  

This ended up aggravating all the nerve endings in my legs so I got another night stay in the hospital.  My goal was to be home by Friday.  

Did I mention that Jared and I were supposed to leave for Mexico on Saturday and had to cancel our entire trip!  I am so bummed out.  

Day 3 next.... Time to go home!

May 15, 2013....the day of the accident.

The day started off like any other Wednesday. I went to work at 7:00 am and worked until 3:30 p.m. I was excited to get home that night as I needed to finish my packing for our annual trip to Mexico on Saturday. 10 whole days with just my husband and I sounded like pure bliss! I had gotten some things put aside in the suitcase when I realized I better get the camper ready for my dad to take it for inspection for tags. We had just purchased the camper used a month before and we needed it titled for camping when we got back.

New camper

I went outside and turned on the propane tanks. I had Austin come with me to help spray the soapy water on the lines checking for leaks. We ran all the lines on the outside but did not show one single leak. I was happy for that. At this time I went into the camper and turned on the front burner on the stove. I used a lighter and was able to light the burner without any problems. I went to turn on the second burner and light the lighter when all of a sudden, I heard a loud explosion and saw a fireball twice the size of an excercise ball, fly past me towards the back of the camper. I screamed as it threw me out of my flip flops and my son jumped out the door. If the front door would not have been open the fireball might have moved forward and burnt my son also.

I started patting my legs and chest to make sure I was to on fire and jumped out of the camper. First thing I did was run to the front and turn off the propane so it would not feed the fire If possible. I was screaming as I looked down at my legs and saw the skin just hanging in sheets. I ran into the hOuse and hollered for Jared to take me to the ER as I had been burned.

After fire













Austin and our neighbor stayed behind to be sure there was not any live fire in the camper. Trent went through it and there was no fire, so they left to come to the hospital. Within 10 minutes of the living the house, the camper erupted not flames and burned to the ground in less than 10 minutes.




As I got to the ER they wrapped my legs in cold wet rags to stop the burn. It wasn't helping. I,was screaming and cring, begging them to just knock me out. They said they couldn't knock me out, unfortuneately. After quite a few doses of propanolol, a couple doses of diludid, a couple injections of morphine and Ativan, I was finally starting to get some pain relief......well I was asleep at least.




The hospital called the top Burn unit at KU medical center in Kansas City and KU wanted me transported ASAP. So the ambulance arrived finally about 10:00 to transfer me. I don't remember much about the transport cause I was so doped up on pain meds.




Once I got to KU, they proceeded to debried my legs of all listers and loose skin. SHIT that hurt!!! They finally wrapped my legs in special gauze and bacitracin ointment and I was able to get another morphine Injection to sleep halfway through the night.

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Day 1 to follow.