Friday, September 15, 2006

Burns - Hands that Hurt Part 1


Written By - Britt

Mme. Bozor's husband came for dressing change today. He is going back to NewYork on Sunday. It's a very difficult thing to understand or be a part of. It is all very sad.

Here are some photos of his burns before we started working and during and after. Burns are supposed to be one of the most painful injuries you can sustain - I can personally testify that it's true. It was hard for me because I was much more emotionally involved with this story and that changed things.

Last night, I did not pop the blisters because he was supposed to go to a burn clinic this morning but then he didn't because of vehicle problems. I've read/heard conflicting info on this ... some say pop them, some say let them be. Where There Is No Doctor says leave them. I took the advice of a doctor friend and drained the blisters and removed the skin. It took about two and a half hours ... besides the two big blisters covering the top of each hands, there were smaller ones on almost every finger/knuckle.
One hand had blisters up the back of the wrist as well. First I poked holes to drain all the fluid, but under the skin was an additional layer of .... thick 'fatty' looking stuff (I'm sure someone will tell me what its proper name is). You can kind of see the yellow of the thick 'stuff' in this picture to the right. After all was removed, I covered them with gauze with silvadene (a burn cream) and then wrapped with gauze and ace bandages. In the picture of the two of us, you can see how heavy his hands look. It was really hard to know that I was putting him in so much pain, but once it was finished I was really glad I did it.

Please pray that he is able to get to the burn clinic tomorrow morning.

After Msr. Bozor, I had four other patients. I am still seeing that sweet old lady from a few weeks ago ... her body does not seem to want to let that surface scrape heal. I also saw Boulos; his knee is healing very well. Yesterday I saw two new burn patients - sisters who live in the mountains and each burned their leg in a motorcycle accident. Right now I also have a little boy, named Paulson who burned his knee on a hot pot a week ago. The burns seem to be increasing. Burns take longer to heal and the cream is expensive.

The fifth patient can be found two posts below. Directly below are more pics of Bozor's owie hands.