Why I went into nursing?

rlockd

Dear Burn Nurses...

I want to thank you all for what you do with your patients. A burn nurse is the reason I decided to go into nursing. This is my story.

On July 7th of 2008, start like any other day with the exception that I placed something in the crock pot to eat that evening for dinner. We had a round table with a long plastic table cloth on it. My daughter came into the kitchen once and I escorted her out but I did not see her come in the second time. She had gotten under the table where the crock pot was located. It took just a short time before I heard the most awful screaming I had ever heard in my life. She had pulled the crock pot of the kitchen table.

At the time, we lived near a hospital. I did the first thing I could think of at the time. I picked her up and ran with her to the hospital. Her skin was coming off on me and I was cover in her blood from where the crock pot had hit her in the head. She was then sent by ambulance to the Children's hospital. At the time, I did not know how close to death my child was during those first few days. All I remember was that she was pale and lifeless.

She had sustained Full thickness burns on her back, bottom, and right arm. She had partial thickness burns on her full right arm and both legs in spots it was full thickness. She had a laceration on her head from the crock pot hitting it and somehow did not burn her face or head. We spent two weeks in the hospital immediately after the burn. The nurse who inspired me was not from Children's hospital but from a burn center in Tulsa. She comes into the story a little later.

We had a rough time with Children's hospital. They first sent us home two weeks after Faith's burns with the white leathery stiff 3rd degree burns on her back and bottom and the blisters and swelling in her legs, feet and arms. I had a hard time keeping up with her fluid intake. She was drinking large amounts of pedialyte and water but having no urinary output , tears with dressing changes and had an elevated fever. At this time, I had no medical knowledge at all but I knew something was not right with her.

So I called the doctor in the hospital that was an hour half away from where I lived and took my screaming in pain three year old back to children's hospital. That's when the fun began, Doctors who did not explain procedures and medications well. We had to listen the nurses fight with physical therapy. Physical therapy did not like the doctor. It was to a point that one nurse did not give my child pain medication in time before a dressing change because she was mad at physical therapy.

Once faith finished her six skin grafting surgeries there at Children's hospital, she was supposed to get measured for burn garments. They went ahead and sent us home. I waited six weeks after our release from the hospital to get garments for her and nothing happened. Faith finally ended with a contracture under her right arm because she did not have the garments.

That is when I called the phoenix burn society and they gave me the number to the Hillcrest medical center. The nurse that answered the phone that day was Ann. She helped get into a plastic surgeon with their hospital and help get my child scheduled for garment fittings. We had garments within two weeks from meeting with the doctor and faith getting measured. This was not the first time Ann had gone above and beyond what she had to do as a nurse.

Faith had to go back in to get the contracture released. Ann had went and bought both of my girls Easter baskets and gave them stickers and bought faith her favorite type of soap so she could take a shower there at the hospital. Still to this day they make sure we got information for faith to go to burn camp.

Ann went above and beyond what she had to do to help my child smile. That is why I decided to become a nurse; I want to make people smile in hard situations.

Why I went into nursing?

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