Sweet Precious Moments

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!