Living Seoul

In the full burn garb (and Dad's shoes). Had to wear a special stocking to keep everything in place.

Today I was telling someone the story of my burn. Quite honestly, there are a lot of holes in my version. I was one-year-old when it happened. I remember nothing. So, I called Mom for the rest of the details.

Where/When: I was 15 months old when I was burned, so it would probably be March of 1987. My parents and I were living in a little house in Oak Forest in Houston (no sister yet). My grandparents were visiting from New Jersey.

Background: We were all about to go out to dinner. Mom was in the kitchen cooking a pot of pasta sauce to prepare for the next day’s meal. She left me in the living room with Dad, Grandma and Grandpa who were waiting for her to finish.

The Moment: I snuck back into the kitchen with my Mom. Then I came up from behind her and tried to inch my way through her legs as she was putting the pot of pasta sauce in the refrigerator. She was taken by surprise. The pot of sauce fell and landed on us. It was not boiling but had come off the stove. My Mom was splattered and got minor burns. I received the majority of it. I am told there were some feelings of guilt since I no one noticed me wander off into the kitchen.

Months of regular bandages.

Hospital: Mom remained calm and told my Dad to leave my clothes on and get me under cold water. My grandparents were trying to rub butter on me but my Mom wouldn’t allow them, haha. She said the scariest part was in the car on the way to the hospital. There was a sheet draped over my body and when she lifted it up she could already see huge blisters forming on my legs. I had first, second and third degree burns that covered over 10% of my body. It was mainly the lower part of my left leg, both ankles and splatters on my upper legs, abdomen and elbow. The burns were so severe because I had weak baby skin. I had to stay in the hospital for a week. I was able to talk a little bit by this age, but my Mom claims I never told her I was in pain or cried. She says I was possibly too drugged to know that anything hurt or maybe it actually didn’t hurt that bad. When you have third degree burns it apparently burns off some of the nerve endings. The pediatric burn specialist, Dr. Basil (“Like the herb,” says Mom.) was considering a skin graft because some of the third degree burns were not healing fast enough. Miraculously the day before they were going to do the surgery the burn healed enough to call it off. By the way, the procedure of skin grafting, basically transplanting skin, looks terrifying.

Final stages of healing. Goat?

Aftermath: I went home after a week but had to return every day for two more weeks for hydrotherapy. I guess they want really deep burns to heal from the inside out so they try to slough off the top layer of skin in a big whirlpool. Gross. After hydrotherapy I had to wear a pressure stocking over the burns for many more months. They had to pay special attention to control the way the burns were scarring over my ankles because they were worried it could affect the joint movement.  After the pressure bandage I had to wear regular bandages until the end of autumn. Basically my left leg was all messed up for 1987.

Now: Growing up I was kinda conscious of the scars. There were times in elementary school that I wished my leg looked normal, but I knew worse problems existed. Plus, as I got older and grew the scar stretched out with my skin. You can still see where the tongue of my shoe met my leg and the ribbing in my socks. It’s all burned in to me! Overall it looks much better than it did when I was a kid. It’s still wrinkly and weird and no hair grows and it won’t get sunburned. I definitely got lucky that only part of my leg was burned. It could have been so much worse.