BIG. Part 9.

After a few weeks of very minimal PT ( the PTs came to my room and would get me up in the walker and I'd make a lap around the nurses station and then have to sit in the chair for as long as I could stand it-- usually about 15 minutes was all I could take), the team started talking about rehab.  Obviously, I had no strength at all in my right leg (most of the muscle and tissue had been cut out of the leg), and decreased strength in my right leg from begin in bed for four and a half weeks.  I still had the feeding tube and was eating almost nothing, and still in a ton of pain.  So it was obvious that I was in no shape to be discharged home and would need some sort of inpatient rehab.

We learned from the burn unit's social worker that Loyola has a tremendous inpatient rehab program.  The problem was, only 5% of the patients who want/need services on that unit are accepted.  It's a relatively small program, and a big hospital.  So besides the fact that there was a 95% chance of not getting accepted into the program, we also knew I was uninsured, which we figured would go against us.  We all prayed constantly that I would be accepted into this program...for several reasons.  One reason was we knew it was an amazing rehab program, and it would be much easier that leaving the hospital I'd grown to know and love and have to go to a completely different facility.  Another reason was, we were afraid that many programs may not accept me due to the fact that I was uninsured.  Also, we were worried that I might end up in a nursing home somewhere with all the horrors that you hear about nursing homes.  I was terrified to leave the burn unit, but I was even more terrified to leave Loyola completely.  So day and night we'd pray that somehow God would allow me to be accepted into that rehab program.

God stepped right in, and despite all the barriers in the way, I was chosen as one of the 5% to be accepted into the inpatient rehab program at Loyola.  HUGE prayer answered!!  God is SO GOOD.  I don't know what my doctors and social worker had to do to get me in that program, but they are absolutely amazing, and by the grace of God I got to go there.

Although it was amazing that I was going to be discharged from the Burn ICU to Loyola Inpatient Rehab, I wasn't exactly thrilled to be leaving my home in the ICU.  My doctors were like family.  My nurses treated me like I was one of their own.  They had saved my life there, and there was trust and safety and security there.  I had a little schedule, and I had grown quite comfortable living it.  I was terrified to leave there and go to a unit where they didn't know me and my experiences, they didn't know my pain, they didn't know how to take care of necrotizing fasciitis.  Would they know how to bathe me how the burn nurses did?  Would they have warm blankets to wrap me in?  Would their TVs have VCRs?  Were there even nurses at all on rehab or was it just physical therapists?  So many thoughts were running through my mind.

In the meantime, I was continuing to recover slowly.  The pain hadn't decreased much since the last surgery...it was still quite horrible.  They had turned my IVs off and started me on oral pain medications, except for before my bed baths.  The pain of my wounds getting washed was too much to bare, so the doctors ordered that the nurses give a dose of IV pain medication before the bath for me (and for all the other burn unit patients).  One time, a nurse forgot to give the patient across the hall her meds first, and I heard the patient screaming in pain.  It was terrifying.

On my last day in the burn unit before moving to rehab, I had a new nurse who didn't work there much....I didn't know her and found out later that she was agency.  That morning, she came in and said it was time for my bath.  However, she wasn't going to give me my normal bed bath-- instead she wanted to take me to the "shower cart."  I had no idea what the shower cart was, but I didn't argue and just decided to go along with it.  I should've known it was going to be bad when she didn't give me the pre-bath meds.  She said that since I wouldn't be in bed for the bath, she didn't want to give me any meds.  She didn't want me to get dizzy in the shower cart and pass out or something.  I was terrified.  I knew how painful the bath was WITH the meds.  Again, I just decided to go along with it.  My mom got there just in time, and went with us to the "shower cart" room.  I actually walked there with my walker.  When the nurse opened the door, I started trembling with fear.  It looked like a freakin' concentration camp.  That's the only way I can describe that room.  There was two metal square carts, next to each other, and immediately I realized that this was the debridement room-- where burn victims were taken to scrub and clean their wounds and remove the dead skin.... this was NOT a shower!!  I told her I wanted to go back to my room, but she insisted that I had to have my bath there.  She made me climb up in that cart (which was literally impossible) and then tried to make me lay down naked on that flat metal cart.  First of all, I couldn't even lay flat....it was impossible.  I was cut all the way up to my hip and all over my stomach, so I had to lay at a 45 degree angle most of the time.  She yelled at me to lay flat, but I told her "no" and just leaned back on my arms.  HORRIBLE.PAIN.  Then, she turned the water on.  You would never freakin believe it, guys.  There was a little hole in the cart where a hose came through and tricked out COLD, ICE COLD, water.  "AHHHH!!" I cried.  "No, no, this is freezing!!  Please make it warmer!!"  My mom wrapped me up in a towel and literally held me in the fetal position while the nurse hosed me down with ice cold water.  I was sobbing in pain and freezing.  I was shivering uncontrollably.  The nurse kept saying, "Its warm. It doesn't get any warmer...you don't think its warm enough?"  "No!!" I cried.  "No!" My mom cried.  "This water is freezing!!"  Finally the nurse found a bucket and started leaving the room, going across to a different room, filling up the bucket with warm water, and then coming back in and dumping the warm water on me.  Honestly, it was the second most horrible and painful moment of my entire hospitalization.  I sobbed and shivered and hugged my mom like I was a little girl again.  The only thing my mom and I can compare it to is a concentration camp.  We were horrified.  In the middle of the bath, my mom finally lost it and said "Forget it!!  We'll wash her hair in the bed!  Let's just get back to the room!"  She basically lifted me out of the cart and helped me back to my room, and we finished the bath and washed my hair in my hospital bed.  Thank the good Lord I never had that nurse again.

When I was walking back to the room, crying and shivering, the social worker saw us and told me I was headed to rehab that day.  Needless to say, I was not happy.  All I wanted to do was get back into my bed and cover myself in warm blankets and get the medicine that should've been given to me in the first place and sleep for the rest of the day.  I did NOT want to go to a brand new unit where they were gonna put me through 4 hours of physical therapy a day.  I did not want to leave my doctors who treated me like I was their own daughter.  I was just plain terrified.

But rehab was another step closer to home... and home was my ultimate goal.