been wondering where we have been?????
oh wow........where to begin.
remember when
bailey got burned a few weeks ago? yeah....well, that was the nightmare that just wouldn't end. you see, we went back and forth to bailey's pediatrician several times after the burn occurred. he kept telling us to scrub her burn in the morning and at night, then apply silvadine ointment and re bandage it. let me tell you how fun
that was. throughout this painful in every sense of the word experience, there was this
little voice that doubted the doctor's orders. and his knowledge of burns and how to treat them. but, not wanting to be that mother that always second guesses doctors and not wanting to hurt
his feelings, i pushed those thoughts aside. i trusted that he knew what he was doing. i mean, hello, he
is a doctor and all.
at our last visit, he was concerned that bailey's burn had become infected and put her on a different antibiotic. at this point, sorry to be graphic, but both burn areas were still very much open, oozing wounds, especially the top one. that one just didn't seem to be healing or getting any smaller. so, to me, it made sense that they might be infected, which could be delaying the healing process.
anyway, skip ahead a couple of days and the boo and i (and boss) are on our way to visit friends and family back home. i described bailey's current burn condition to my mom who also had had some concern for the way the burn has been treated and we both decided to see if we could get a second opinion from a burn specialist. one was quickly scheduled for later that day (about a hour after we arrive from our 5 hour drive, but who's counting).
again, i'll skip the exciting details about how we went all around trying to find the right place to check in and then how we waited about 30 minutes in one of those tiny waiting rooms (where bailey "talked" on the phone to her "da-dEEEE", sang and danced). you could tell this place was especially for children by the kind way everyone we encountered interacted with bailey and how everyone in the office really worked to squeeze us in for appointments.
the main burn specialist was further educating himself at a conference, so we met with the head nurse. upon closely inspecting the burn, she explained that a 3rd degree burn is one that has not closed up in 21 days. this was day 14 and, like i said earlier, it was far from being healed. she pointed at a little ridge that was forming on the inside portion of the burn area and explained that the skin might not be growing beyond this point because there may be no new skin cells left to grow. you
know my mom and i were dying to know if bailey's burn had received proper treatment and, sadly, we learned it had not. it should never have been scrubbed, which was just washing away new baby skin cells and they make a better treatment for burns now called acticoat. they asked me what pain medication i was giving her and i replied none since her doctor assured me time and time and time again that the pain nerve fibers are burned off during 2nd degree burns. according to him, she couldn't feel anything and was just fussing because she was mad or irritated that we were messing with her burn, not because it hurt. again, this was completely wrong. 3rd degree burns, not 2nd degree burns, result in the destruction of pain fibers. so, not only had i been physically hurting my child for the past 2 weeks, i had also been rubbing off the very cells she needed to heal.
i was so mad at myself for going against my mother's instinct.
it was at this time that she shared the possibility of bailey requiring a skin graft to close up the burn area, which, of course melted me to tears (which means a lot because i hate to cry in public). a skin graft would include a 3-5 night stay in the hospital where surgeons would cut skin from bailey's "diaper area" and place it over her existing burn areas, leaving us with double the wounds to take care of. the whole thing just sounded plain awful. she kept saying there was a
chance that bailey wouldn't need skin grafts, but the way she said it gave me the impression that the odds were stacked pretty high against us.
i spent the next two days sharing this devastating news with friends and family via e-mail and phone calls and asking for prayers. i had a hard time sleeping (so did bailey, which was as awesome as it always is) and it literally felt like a huge load was resting on my shoulders. exhausted just isn't quite strong enough of a word to describe my physical, emotion, and mental state.
as much as i would like to say i trusted that god would take care of my little girl and heal her up good as new, we all had a pretty stressful weekend. billy and i debated the pros and cons of having the surgery at home or in little rock and worried about how this would impact billy's work load and all of our other plans. i knew all of my wonderful friends were praying to god to heal bailey's arm enough so we could skip the whole skin graft thing and that those sweet friends were adding bailey to different prayer request lists but i am embarrassed to admit that i thought it wouldn't matter anyway.....that whatever is done is done. plus, what if god, for some strange reason, wanted us to go through the pain of a skin graft? what then? so, i prepared my heart for the worst.
well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make the connection between this entry and it's title. at 8 a.m. the following monday morning, the burn specialist carefully unwrapped bailey's dressings to reveal a miracle. her burns had healed dramatically, more so in those 4 days than the previous 14 combined. it was truly amazing!!! i was in total shock over the amount of healing that had just occurred. then i heard the heart warming news that bailey would not need surgery and that it was healing up just fine!! to be honest, i didn't know how to feel. you would think i'd be jumping up and down and screaming "thank you, thank you, jesus" like they do on tv, but i just sat there in disbelief at what i was hearing and seeing.
god does listen to prayers and god does answer them. it's as simple as that. god healed my little angel girl and spared her, us, and everyone around us the pain and hassle of toddler surgery. and for that, i am eternally grateful.
i totally expected her to take another monster of a nap when we got home (they had been lasting almost 3 hours), but she surprised me with a little 45 minute cat nap. oh well, she was still in a good mood and that's pretty much all that matters :)
we enjoyed spending time with family on easter! here are a few shots of bailey hanging around with her fun cousins :)
yes, we let our child play with the occasional dangerous toy every now and then, but it's always under the most closely monitored adult supervision, i promise! 
"play, play, play, play, play........"
i saw this beautiful cat (aka, meow) at a children's store. i liked it, so my grandma (pronounced "grrrr-maaa") bought it for me. i love you grandma. you ROCK!
