Today was a day with moments that I wish I could film and
let you watch it, but instead of seeing a video clip or photos I am going to
try and describe my day.
Plastics started 6 weeks ago, and since it has been a flow
of patients having their bandages changed, some have big areas where they have
been operated on and these are the patients we get to know well as they take a
bit longer to heal.
We have had a little girl coming every other day to the
inpatient dressing room, some days are good and others are not so good, but
today was a sweet day! I picked her up from the ward she is on and took her
down to the dressing room, already in my arms I stand her on the trolley ready
for her to have her bandages taken off and her skin grafts cleaned. We decided
it was best for me to distract her and make her comfortable and the other nurse
to do the dressing. It didn’t start so well, had a few tears but eventually she
cuddled into arms and laid her head on my shoulder, I started patting her back
and then a few minutes later she started patting my back, then I could feel her
body relaxing. The dressing finished and I took her back to her ward, all the way
down the hallway she had her head cuddled into my neck and her little hand
patting my back, my heart melted and did not want to leave her there on the
ward, I wanted to continue to hold her in my arms.
Today is one of those days I will never forget, as moments
like that are precious.
 |
What made today even more special came in the afternoon.
There has been a patient on the plastics ward for about 5 weeks. I think this
girl has touched many people just by her smile and her beautiful eyes.
She had a huge surgery to
release her burn contractures and she is still recovering from the surgery. But
today was a great day! Not only did we leave a donor site (this is where they
take skin from and then put it where it is needed to release the contracture)
open to air as all healed but we also left her arm open to air too, this arm
has been covered in dressing since the operation. This all means that those wounds
are healed! To celebrate this huge milestone we were all dancing to music, her
smile was huge and her eyes were beaming with pleasure at watching 4 nurses, a
physio and an OT dancing!!!!! I would have loved to know what she was thinking
looking at us!
As we took her back to the ward I told the nurses the
patient wanted to show them something, as she walked in the nurses could see
she had no more dressing in her arm, they all clapped and cheered for her even
the other patients started clapping! It was such a great sight to see her
smiling and hugging everyone! The community which is the ward congratulating her,
where else do you get that?
She has a long way to go to fully recover from her surgery
but today was a huge step in her recovery and I am so grateful I could be there
to see it and dance about it!
