FIRST TIME I SAW MY FACE AND HAND

Hi, you are “face to face with Shell”.

I am going to talk to you about what happened to me the first time that I saw my face and hand.  I hope my experiences help you and show you that things can and will get better.

I was very badly burned in a gas explosion when I was thirteen years old.  I received fifty percent burns (first through to fourth degree burns) which mainly affected my face, arms, and hands.

You can either read on or watch this video:

Not long after my cousin and I were admitted to the Burns Unit, we were allowed to see each other.  I remember her “visiting” my room, being wheeled in on a huge surgical chair…we both started to yell, thinking the same thing “DO I LOOK LIKE THAT”???  My cousin was quickly wheeled away…lol.  Looking back it was quite funny, I do laugh about it now.  I think we got such a shock at what each other looked like.  Funny thing is…we were both covered in bandages…not really much to see…lol.

I do remember asking my mum and dad:  “Do I look like her”?  Bless them, they answered:  “No” but of course I did.

My cousin and I didn’t see each other for a long time after that…I wonder why…lol.

For obvious reasons, I was not allowed to see my face at first.

Your scars may not be present at first.  When the bandages were taken off my face, I remember my dad’s very good friend coming in and saying:  “Now that’s the Michelle Laird I know”.  My mum said that I looked “just like me”, there were no scars at first.  Then the skin started to “over heal” and that’s when my scars really started to take hold.  I had very thick, red scarring; especially on my neck and on my left arm, towards my hand, and my right hand was very badly damaged.  I couldn’t straighten my right arm or my right wrist.  The skin had “contracted”. 

It really upset me at first, that I had no scars on my face and that it was only after my skin started to heal, that they appeared. 

If you are young, the same area may need to be grafted/released more than once, as your skin no longer has the elasticity that it once had; it just will not stretch the same or “grow with you”.  My cousin needed quite a significant amount of work done on her neck, as it kept contracting.

Anyway, getting back to the first time I saw my face.  Unofficially; I had a television set in my room, which my parents had bought me (remember, this was more than 30 years ago, the hospital was not all fitted with mod-cons like they are today).  I had started to stretch over from my bed, towards the television screen when it was turned off, to see if I could see the reflection of my face.  I could!  Not that great but at least I got “the jist” of what I looked like. 

I needed a better solution; this came in the form of a lid from a tin of sweets that someone had brought me.  Excellent.  I used it as a mirror.  I can’t remember being that shocked.  For some reason I took it in my stride.  I wasn’t over the moon about it, obviously but it was more or less what I had expected.

So when it came to the point of the medical team “officially” showing me my face, I was thinking; “yeah I know what it looks like”…I didn’t tell them that though…just thought it…lol.  I remember the staff coming in with the mirror (I had been continually asking them to show me my face…they finally gave in…lol).  They asked me if I was ready and I said:  “Yes”, knowing full well what I was going to see.  Only thing was, they gave me the magnified side of the mirror and I remember thinking; “wow, my face is really big”…lol.  I told the staff this and they turned the mirror around to normal.  I was then thinking; “oh yeah, this is what I was seeing in the sweet tin”.

The medical team told my mum and dad at visiting time that they had showed me my face.  They asked how I had reacted and the team had said:  “Calm…too calm”.  Little did they all know what I had been up to.  I did eventually tell them…by this time…I think the team got “the cut of me” and knew that was just my personality.

I was actually more freaked out about seeing my hand than I was my face.

I remember being told that the next time that I was in theater, my right hand was coming out of the bandages.  It was never explained to me what my hand was going to look like, that it was going to be like a “claw”.  I asked my mum and dad, and they said that it was probably going to look like my left hand but maybe with more “scabs” in between my fingers.  My parents didn’t know either, nothing was really explained to them.

Anyway, I remember waking from the anaesthetic and my right arm being up in a sling.  I remember looking into the sling and seeing this “thing”.  I could not believe that this was my hand.  My cousin’s dad (my uncle) just happened to be in the room when I awoke.  I could not believe what I was seeing.  I remember crying and shouting on my uncle, and I remember not understanding why he would not come over to comfort me.  I was shouting:  “Look what they have done to my hand” and calling his name.  I remember seeing him walk out of the room and I just couldn’t understand why.  I needed him.  Truth was; he just couldn’t handle seeing me this upset and had to walk away.  Of course at the time, I did not understand this at all.  I cried and cried, unable to believe that THIS was now my hand.

It was a lot to take in, especially my hand but I got there and you will too.

Remember, you can do this…you are amazing.

Speak soon.