Let this be a lesson to you

Every time I visit the Plunket nurse with Kathleen, I am reminded by them about keeping your baby or toddler safe. I tend to dismiss this as common sense - things like keeping medicines and poisons out of reach, supervising them around water, etc. I thought "that doesn't apply to me, I already do that stuff". However I have now learnt that you can never be complacent about safety where a toddler is concerned. Even the most watchful parent can take their eyes off a child for just a moment, and that's all it takes for them to get into trouble.

Three weeks ago we had a few friends visiting us. It was after dinner and everyone was relaxed and happy. Kathleen wandered off into the kitchen, which is somewhere she goes every day. I wasn't too worried about her, except that I knew it was time for her bath and was about to go get her when we heard the sound of something falling and Kathleen start screaming. Someone had left a cup of hot tea on the bench to cool, and Kat had pulled it down and spilled it all over herself.

We quickly threw wet towels all over her head and shoulders. However she was still in a lot of pain, so Peter and I took her down to the emergency department at the hospital. It was Friday night, so there was nowhere else open. They admitted her straight away and gave her both Pamol and Morphine to stop the pain. The doctor said she had a first degree burn on her left shoulder. She had a large blister on top of her shoulder which had burst, and they wrapped up her whole shoulder with gauze and a stretchy bandage.

We were at the hospital for only about an hour in total, but it seemed like a very long time. We spent a lot of that time by ourselves waiting for the drugs to take effect, and keeping Kathleen busy by playing with toys and reading books. By the time the nurses came back to bandage her up, she was quite tired and sleepy due to the drugs and the late hour of the evening, and didn't protest at all.

The next day the extent of Kathleen's injuries could be seen (apart from the damage to her shoulder which was still bandaged up). The left side of her face was pink, like a sunburn, and her left ear was red and swollen. However none of it seemed to bother her, and she was happily bouncing all over the place.

Sunday evening we had been told to go back to the emergency department to get Kat's dressing changed. The skin under the bandage was very red and sore looking. But once again it didn't seem to bother her and she was bouncing around all day. Maybe it was the Pamol helping to hide the pain.

Two days later, on the Tuesday, we went down to our local GP to get the dressing changed again. This time they used a Fixomull dressing rather than gauze. This type of dressing sticks directly onto the skin and onto the burn. And it doesn't come off. At least not without soaking it with oil for four hours. The nurse said to treat it as another layer of skin. Although it sounds a bit strange, apparently it helps burns to heal faster and also makes them hurt less. What I liked about it was the fact that Kat could now bounce around without the gauze slipping out of the bandage or rubbing her skin.

Kathleen however wasn't particularly happy about having her shoulder touched. Either by the nurse or by me on subsequent days, as I followed the instructions to clean the dressing twice daily.

The new dressing was meant to stay on for a week, i.e. until the following Tuesday. However, by Sunday Kathleen's shoulder had started to become itchy. A good sign that it was healing. But she didn't understand this and just wanted to itch it. And she managed to pull the bandage away from her skin a little bit. Which it's not meant to do. I stopped her and kept her covered up all day. However overnight she was free to itch as much as she wanted, and by Monday morning the dressing was half off and her t-shirt was covered in blood.

So I took her back down to the GP a day early. They advised me to soak the rest of the bandage in oil and come back in the afternoon once it had had at least four hours to soak in. Well, that was lots of fun. I distracted Kathleen with a Barney DVD and attempted to rub oil into her shoulder. She protested and wriggled a lot. Then I had to wrap her up in Gladwrap (cling film) to keep the oil off her clothes. That was funny. And very difficult. I was reminded of that scene in the Full Monty where Dave wraps himself in cling film to lose weight. Only, it's not as easy as it looks. Especially on a one and a half year old!

We went to the supermarket, had lunch and then I put Kat down for a nap. And amazingly, everything stayed in place. We went back to the GP in the afternoon. The dressing peeled off nice and easily. Her shoulder was still looking very red and sore but they said it was healing nicely. The doctor did however pick up on a couple of areas that she thought might be infected, so she prescribed some antibiotics for Kathleen and then they re-dressed the shoulder.

This time round Kat's shoulder seemed to heal a lot faster. There was no bleeding and no weeping or crustiness that we had with the first dressing. But the antibiotics were a different story. She had to take them three times a day on an empty stomach - meaning "two hours after eating and one hour before eating". She had to have 7ml at a time and she HATED it.

For the next five days I turned into Evil Mummy, forcing my daughter to drink this horrible medicine three times a day. Not only that, but starving her in between meals. No snacks allowed. We were both pretty miserable by the time the five days were over.

However, on the bright side, her shoulder seemed to be healing pretty well. It was still itchy, and by the next weekend it appeared that the skin underneath was peeling like a sunburn would, as the dressing was starting to lift away from her skin. I kept her wrapped up with stretchy bandages over her dressing so that her couldn't peel it away again.

We went back to the GP's for the last time on Monday this week to get the second dressing removed. Once again I had to oil her up again and wrap her in Gladwrap. This time the protests were much less. When the nurse peeled the dressing off, even I could tell it was much, much better. Her skin was mottled pink but there was no sign of scaring or bleeding. There were a few spots which the doctor said indicated there had been a small infection, but they had cleared up nicely.

That was at the beginning of this week. It is now three weeks tonight since Kat got burnt. Her shoulder is still pink and mottled but it isn't bothering her any more. We have to keep her out of the sun for the next several months, so it will be a summer of hats, shirts and lots of sunscreen. I am just so thankful that there is no lasting damage, and that she will be ok.

And so the moral of the story is - always be careful, accidents can happen any time when you least expect it. And the reason the Plunket nurse is always going on about safety is not to be repetitive but to remind you that you can never be too careful.

-Megz