I have not posted an update about the accident in a long time. That means things are good.
My two boys are doing great: My 2-year-old’s burns have healed and he is jumping all over the place; he is back at daycare. My 5-year-old’s skin grafts on his feet are healed – we went to HCMC today and they took his bandages off and he now has a compression sock on each foot and he wore a new pair of Crocs home. So awesome to see. His head bandages came off a week ago, his scalp fully healed from where the skin grafts were harvested. And his hair is growing back! I am relieved.
It is curious to me that it feels more laborious to write about good news. Well, it’s probably more about making time to write rather than forcing myself to write, as if I don’t want to write about good news.
Or maybe I don’t need to sort my thoughts out with good news? I discovered after writing about the accident and then writing about my son’s skin graft surgery that typing words helped my brain process the chaos around me. And now that my two boys are healing and our family is settling back into the “normal” family chaos, I’m not writing. I’m back to posting humorous things I find on the internets and pictures of the coffee mug I drink from on Monday. And that is just fine with me.
However, I did have a few more thoughts to share and figured I should at least post something about how good things are going. Maybe I don’t need to do that?
I also wanted to type up links to related pages with dates: (I will add more posts from the future if I write about this subject)
April 13, 2010: The Accident [no posts, no tweets, no status updates]
April 17, 2010: Back Home; Things I have noticed
April 19, 2010: Ravioli 5 days later …
April 21, 2010: Damn. Surgery. / De-scrambling my thoughts…
April 21, 2010: I am bald now
April 23, 2010: Surgery. Done. It went really good; More things I have noticed
April 24, 2010: The Dome Out the Window
May 03, 2010: Mugshot Monday – “Big Hug Mug”
May 11, 2010: Getting back to “normal” chaos (this post you are reading now)
April 12, 2011: How do we deal with the one year anniversary of ‘The Accident’?
Things I have noticed:
- Kids look like they tune out when you are talking shop with the doctors and the nurses, but they hear every word. Every dang word.
- My 5-year-old said he wanted to keep his hospital wristband ID on until his bandages come off. That was fine with me.
- We are amazed at how many people shared similar stories with us where they were burned or someone they know was burned at a young age. Boiling water falling from the the stove, pulling a coffee pot from a table, spilling hot tea, and more. Many who told the stories who are parents helped remind us that accidents happen.
- I was thankful to friends and family who brought presents for all three of my kids and not just the two who were hurt, or just the one who had surgery. This accident has been stressful for my oldest, too, even though he did not get burned. I can still remember the look on his face when the accident happened. He was so scared for his brothers.
- Bringing meals and treats over is a wonderful thing when a family is dealing with adversity. The photo above is of some Smiley Face Butter Cookies sent to us by a high school friend of mine. Food helped us find our smiles.
- We threw the saucepan in the garbage today. The one that had the boiling water in it when the accident happened. We probably didn’t need to do that. But it felt right.
[Read the next post from The Accident: April 12, 2011: How do we deal with the one year anniversary of ‘The Accident’?]