About one year ago I had burned my arm very badly and ended up having to get a skin graft. The graft didn’t go as well as expected and I my scar had a lot of keloids. Other than   my vanity and not wanting an enormous grotesque scar on my arm, the scar was also extremely sensitive to the touch. After waiting a year an making sure my skin was ready, my doctor cut out part of the scar. We will go back and take the rest of the scar in about six months. My arm needed time for my skin to naturally stretch so he would be able to take out the rest of the scar. I will still have a long scar on the back of my arm, but it will eventually fade. I think it looks so much better than before already. People that haven’t seen the scar before still gasp and ask what happened, but I just say “You should have seen it before!” After my next surgery in December, I will post the final “after” results. Hopefully I can keep myself out of the hospital for a while after that!!

For spring break, we decided to leave a little early and visit my brother’s family in Denver for a few days before heading up into the mountains to go skiing. My sweet niece Jayme turns 15 on Saturday, so we wanted to be able to celebrate her birthday while we were up here. Jayme got a new horse for Christmas and wanted to show him off. The girls were so excited to go see the horses. We spent the afternoon where Jayme keeps her horse Cisco. The girls got to help groom the horses, then Jayme took them to ride a sweet horse named Sam. Jayme rode Sam when she first got into riding. After the girls were finished with Sam, we got to watch Jayme take a jumping lesson. It was so much fun watching her control that huge horse. We all had a really fun afternoon, but I have a feeling we are going to be asked “can we get a horse” soon.

After a year of Alannah asking to cut her hair off, we finally decided to let her try it. We usually cut the girl’s hair once a year and right before summer. Alannah’s hair was long enough to donate about 8″ to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which makes wigs for women who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments. Her school has been honoring Earth Awareness this week, so she likes to say she is “recycling” her hair. It looks really cute and she is so excited about it. Avlyn decided she wanted her hair a little shorter, but not really short like Alannah. Her hair looks really cute on her as well. Avlyn has been bouncing around the house because she likes the way it feels. Their new haircuts fit their personalities and will be so easy to maintain this summer. And for our family who may be very shocked by the new haircuts, Alannah reminded me that “it is just hair and will grow back.” They really do look cute with their shorter hair though.

2009-04-21 Girl's Haircuts

   

Today I was able to have the vacuum removed from my arm that helped the donor skin take to its new area. You can see the yellow areas above kept getting bigger and bigger. Those areas were the very deep burns that were just not healing. I decided not to post the picture from the donor site…my bum. My doctor took about half the staples out of my arm today and I will have the other half removed on Monday. It was extremely painful to me and Casey’s poor hand is probably still sore from me squeezing it so tightly. I’m sure I will have a big scar, but it should be nothing like what it could have ended up looking like. I feel like I am finally on the road to recovery. It will take a while for it to completely heal, so I will post pictures as I see major improvements. Thank you so much to all of you who have kept me in your thoughts and prayers. I have such an incredible group of close friends who rally around me and I am so blessed to have each of you in my life.

Last year I had a complete hysterectomy on my 35th birthday, now this year I get to have a skin graft right before my 36th birthday.

I went to see my doctor today and he gave me the bad news that the entire burned area on my arm would have to be grafted. I will go in next Tuesday to have an area approximately 4×6 inches cut from my bottom and placed on the burned part of my arm…bummer! Apparently the wound was not showing any signs of healing on its own and will require a graft to get it to heal. He wants to do it very soon so I won’t have a "patchwork" looking arm. It could have been a lot worse, so I am very thankful that it was just the back of my arm. As hot as the heater was, I was pretty fortunate that my clothes didn’t catch fire.

So any comments about my arm in the future must be…my what a fine rear you have!!:)

I went to the doctor today and he said I had a very deep 2nd degree burn. He said it will take at least three weeks to start seeing new skin growth and several months before he would consider it to be healed. He also said I would possibly have permanent scarring and discoloration in the area of the burn. I will also probably get a custom fitted compression garment for my arm that I will have to wear three to four months after it has new skin covering the burn. He said this would help decrease the scarring. As sleeveless season is coming up, I will get to sport my new one armed accessory! It could be worse, so I’m not complaining…too much. My oldest daughter was quite astute in her assessment of me in her "Interview" with me as seen in #11 on the post previous to this one.

This was one of those facebook notes going around. We were supposed to ask our child the questions below. I interviewed Avlyn (age 5) & Alannah (7 1/2) and their answers are in that order.
1. What is something mom always says to you?
I Love You.
I Love You.

2. What makes mom happy?
if you clean up your room
when I am near

3. What makes mom sad?
if someone stealed us
when she loses us

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
by telling jokes
does silly faces like her grandpa

5. What was your mom like as a child?
she liked dolls
she acted like a boy

6. How old is your mom?
17
35

7. How tall is your mom?
11 feet
5 ft. 2 in. (actually 5’4" so she was close)

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
watch tv
go swimming with us

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?
go to the store
sit and type on the computer

10.If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
being a fashion show girl
doing tricks on a motorcycle (have no idea where that one came from)

11. What is your mom really good at?
making chocolate chip cookies
getting hurt (sad but true)

12. What is your mom not good at?
getting the dog and putting her in the crate
doing a back flip

13.What does your mom do for a job?
just stay home
pays bills

14.What is your mom’s favorite food?
salad
mexi dips & chips from bueno

15.What makes you proud of your mom?
doing typing
she is fun and she likes me

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
a chicken…like Donald duck (guess we need to work with her a little more on animal recognition)
she would be super stretcher like the mom on the incredible’s…except you would have yellow hair and a blue suit.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
go on a walk
sit and talk

18. How are you and your mom the same?
our eyes
we both care

19. How are you and your mom different?
we don’t have the same hair
because mom wears glasses and I don’t

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
because when I was a baby, I was born
she gives me hugs and kisses

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
his kisses
he’s hot (really? she must have learned this phrase at school. I don’t go around saying that)

22. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go
to the pool
the movies with daddy

If you click on the picture below, it opens up a full size photo and shows the burn in detail. This is a warning to anyone who has a little heater they keep by their feet or in their bathroom. We have a little heater in our bathroom that we turn on during the winter to keep us warm after a bath. The girls will sit close to it after a bath to warm up since our bathroom is so cold during the winter. I have warned them to not sit too close to the heater before because it could burn them or catch their towel on fire. The other day I had chills and just couldn’t warm up. I had on a velour sweat suit but still couldn’t get warm. I fell asleep for just a little while sitting by the heater and my arm felt very warm so I knew I should move away a little further.  After finally warming up and being sleepy, I went to lay down for a nap. When I woke from my nap, my arm was hurting, so I looked at it and found this horrible burn on my arm. I went to my doctor and he said it was a deep 2nd degree burn and didn’t think I would need a skin graft. My arm is extremely swollen and has nasty blisters. My girls are definitely more aware of the heater now, so that is one good lesson learned from this.

 

I can’t believe my baby just turned five. She wanted to celebrate her 5th birthday with a slumber party. We had three out of the six spend the night. Avlyn had so much fun with all of her friends. We made picture frames (the “Silly Girls” picture above went home in the frame), we played Hullabaloo, there was a pillow fight, some movies, a little makeup with manicure and pedicures, and lots and lots of screaming! After they finally were in bed around eleven, I heard Avlyn’s sweet little voice saying, “Mommy, thank you for my party.” My heart melted when my five year old remembered to say that without even being prompted to do so by her daddy.