Snowboarding?????

Danny is healing well. He even attempted his first snowboarding outing on New Years Eve. We took my three boys night skiing (so Danny could avoid the sun) for a few hours. It was really low key, but fun to just get out. The kids asked Danny how the outing ranked on a scale of 1 to 10. He gave it a 2--but hey that's a start!


The plastic mask wouldn't fit under his helmet so he opted for the cloth one. His goggles and neck gator disguised him pretty well. The temperature dipped into the teens after the sun went down which made his arms stiffen up a bit but over all he looked like he had a good time.

Catherine...

Overdue Update

Keeping a Blog up to date is not something I will probably ever be good at, and I know it’s a little behind when I get calls from people wanting directions to my parents house so they can come visit me. They seem to be surprised when I tell them that I moved back to my own house almost a month ago.

I still need help with my daily wound care so I go back to my parents’ house every afternoon to take a shower and change my bandages and compression garments. The only spots that are having trouble healing are my elbows and the occasional new friction blister on my arms, other than that my skin seems to be healing well.

I spend most of the morning in bed where it is warm and my stretching is a bit less painful and then try to get a quick workout before the stretch is gone. It's a little frustrating to get to the gym three blocks from my house after spending all morning stretching and have to re-stretch all over again. For the past week or so my right arm seems to stay stretched out a little longer but my left arm gets tight very quickly. My legs are doing quite well but still get tight if they are in the same position for too long. My tooshy starts to ache if I sit on it for more than 45 Min but is also getting better.

Wearing my masks is something I should probably wait to discuss on a later post because right now my description of them would likely be laced with curse words.

I’ve started new posts a couple of different times but never posted them because everything I was writing seemed to sound really negative. Even though It’s hard to find many positive aspects of what I have to deal with I don’t see why I should let it turn me into a negative person. However, I think I should allow myself a couple of negative paragraphs just to try and get it out of my system…

Within the thirty three years that I have been on this planet I have had more close calls and been in more sketchy situations with the potential outcome of serious injury or death then most people I know. Every time I’ve been able to walk away with a new scar or some new teeth and always with a new story to tell, and always thinking that I’ve learned something from the experience, mostly what Not to do next time I find myself in the situation. Some of my friends might remember my philosophy of “if you’re not hurting then you’re not riding hard enough”, or something that relates to No pain No gain. Of course this way of thinking is what put me in most of those Sketchy situations. Even though this philosophy applies mostly to my hobbies and sports that I love to do and has helped me to reach goals and push myself to learn new things within those areas, it also applies to all areas of my life. Whether it’s feeling the anxiety of quitting your job to start a company or the embarrassment that is felt when asking someone out on a date for the first time, despite being rejected or not. All the good things in my life seem to start out with a little (or A Lot of) discomfort.

(Here is my Negative paragraph so you may want to stop reading here!!!)

Since my accident my life has been turned upside down and I feel that I have lost control of my future. I’ve experienced a new level of pain that I didn’t really understand existed before and it has left me Physically disabled, emotionally broken and often times mentally drained. I’m having a really hard time grasping what I am going to Gain from all this Pain or what lesson Heavenly Father wants me to learn. It’s really hard to keep the negative thoughts of why me?, what did I do to deserve this? at bay when I see myself in the mirror and know that I am permanently disfigured for the rest of my life. It’s also hard to curb those thoughts when I think that within one year I’ve had the best thing and the worse things to ever happen to me, and the best thing may never be the same. It’s hard to be positive when the constant itching gets to the level where I can think of nothing else and on a nightly basis it wakes me from my sleep, while at the same time not being able to do anything about it for risk of further damaging my fragile skin. It’s hard to find anything positive after I wake up gasping for air from being suffocated by the mask that I am supposed to wear while I sleep and ripping it off in a rage of claustrophobia that results in damage to my still healing ears.

Sorry and Thanks for letting me vent, I’ll try to never let it happen again…

DANNY

Danny the Bank Robber

Danny's latest acquisition is this lovely gray mask he is supposed to sleep in every night. It covers his entire head and neck and is extremely uncomfortable. He modeled it for me the other night. After three nights of trying to sleep in it he's ready to give up. Apparently it suffocates him and he wakes up after 30 minutes gasping for air. Sounds fun doesn't it?

Catherine

Danny--The Phantom of the Opera!!!!

Danny got some new hardware today--just a few days late for Halloween fun! He feels like a freak, but I think he looks pretty cute :)


The doctors say this should help minimize the scarring on his face. I don't think Danny is so convinced.





We can't wait to go out for a night on the town. Danny is worried people will think he's kidnapped me.

Catherine

Becoming Lazy

Before my accident I used to average 5 and 7 hours of sleep per night and some days I would steal a 20 min power nap in the afternoon. Now I am getting between 10 and 12 hours per night. I try to convince myself that my recovery requires the rest for my body to heal. However, I think it has more to do with my new found laziness since I have virtually nothing to do most days. My stretching regimen seems to go better if all the muscles and skin are warm so staying under the covers makes sense, RIGHT?????

It will be nice when my skin has healed enough that I can start wearing sunscreen and can venture out of my vampire cave and out into the sunny world of the Day Walkers. This is the time of year that I usually spend lots of time in the mountains with all the fall colors and cool temperatures, whether I'm on a hike or on my bike or on my motorcycle.
I guess there's always next year.

I did get up a little earlier yesterday to make it to a 9:30 check-up appointment down at University hospital. They say that everything looks good and is healing well, so I guess it's a good sign that the people that only see you every couple of weeks can see improvement. It's hard for me to see the improvement when everything looks the same all day every day.

I do see some progress on my head and face
That reminds me of the other thing that happened at my appointment yesterday which is the measuring of my torso for a compression vest and my head and face for a mask. This is the one thing that I am dreading the most, having to wear a mask every day for the next year. If it's the only way to keep the scars to a minimum on my Beautiful face... LOL, then I'll have to suck it up and do what they say.
As soon as I get my new mask and add the vest to the mix then I will have head to toe compression garments. I Can't Wait :(

I wear a size medium Underarmor shirt as a compression vest right now to help with the scarring not just to look tough...

I am off to the gym now. . . later. . .

Other burn victims

I'm prompted to write today because of Stephanie and Christian Nielson's appearance this last week on Oprah. We taped it here because we were gone when it aired.

More about Stephanie can be accessed if you Google her name, or go to: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_cba0a057-39de-5a03-a311-768b0c259913.html

When she came walking out to greet Oprah, she had a spring in her step and acted like she had not been involved in a terrible accident. Her condition had been much more critical than Danny, and because of it was in an induced coma for a considerable amount of time. Danny was sedated for just about a week while Stephanie was sedated for months. Christian Nielson, Stephanie's husband was burned on 30 percent of his body. For most, that will probably seem not too serious, but to the victim and family, all deep burns are serious. Depending on how much was third degree, there are also the areas of harvested skin for the grafts which have problems too.

For me, it always gives support and hope to see someone who has gone through what we have gone through, and is doing so well. Danny mentioned that he has seen the Nielson's at the burn unit of the hospital. Thanks to Stephanie and her husband Christian for telling their story on the Oprah show.

Jan

October 4th, a significant date

Greetings everyone. Today, Sunday October 4th was the original date given for Danny's release from the hospital. For all you blog readers, of course you know the actual release date was Tuesday September 1st.

He's progressing nicely although slow. Problems have shown themselves that we didn't expect but according to the pros are common.

His newly developing skin, even though it looks rough and thick, blisters very easily. When we have an area that we think is coming along nicely and he removes the pressure garments or other coverings, quite often a blister shows up. It's a discouraging situation even though we have been told it's a normal process. Itching is still a plague he's afflicted with. Some nights Benadryl is the only way he can get relief. We do a lot less wound care than two weeks ago. Fewer things to put on him before the pressure clothes now. We are able to touch the ears without him clinching his fists.

Danny is wearing more stylish clothes lately. We bought him some Under Armor a size too small for the pressure needed to aid in scar management. Last Friday we learned he will be wearing a pressure mask for a year, 23 hours a day. Not something to look forward to. There will be two of them, one a cloth mask and one a clear plastic mask.

Physical rehab is going along well. Danny always feels good after a session of killer stretching, then going through the weight room at the Ogden Athletic Club. His therapist is very good at taking care of Danny. We've learned the stretching routine and are helping do it at home. Danny has a membership at Gold's Gym in Layton and will start going over there on his non therapy days. He's gaining weight back and it must be muscle mass, because he's still very thin around the waist.

Danny has been driving his truck for a week and a half now. It's parked out front of our house and although he doesn't go too far, he's not completely dependent on mom and dad to get around.

At the hospital, they told us to return in two weeks for his checkup instead of one. Another improvement.

Jan