Friction...

Daniel got a blister. You see we took Daniel in to the burn center for his first wound care visit. Everything was going well. The nurse looked him over and we discussed his elbow and a few other minor problems. Daniel was tolerating things pretty well, but did stomp his feet a few times which is kind of his normal coping strategy these days. (Wondering if those stomps were part of the cause of what I'm about to discuss).

We brought in his new burn garment and put it on. The OTs examined him and liked the fit. They suggested we get his new garment with zippers installed on his gloves (a 2nd set) since he will wear them 23 hours per day for the next year. Everything was going well and we were leaving the room. As Daniel hopped off the exam bench he seemed to be favoring his leg like it had fallen asleep. He also seemed to be complaining verbally like his leg hurt, but we thought it was from the new garment or just being tired of being examined by all these people. We stopped at the bathroom and as Daniel stood up he would not put any weight on his leg. He didn't even want to stand up so I knew something was wrong.

I opened the door of the bathroom but Daniel would not walk. I got him the few steps outside where Dawn was talking with his old burn pharmacist C. Something was wrong! I pulled up his leg thinking he had hurt his knee from the way he was barely putting any weight on it and that's when we saw this:

At first we all thought it was a compound fracture then the nurses determined that it was an edema over an area on his leg where donor skin had been harvested for his body grafts over a month ago. I carried him back to the exam room, they contacted his surgeon Dr. Wa. and she stopped in to confirmed it was a friction blister. No one had seen one this large though! Daniel was in a lot of pain and looked pretty worried about his leg, but he remained really calm.

Once the staff got their supplies ready the resident doctor used a scalpel to slice his leg open and basically pull out this giant blood blister as a big swollen glob. The opening itself was probably about six inches long. Once the blister was removed his leg was wrapped and we were on our way. No stitches were put in. Instead the wound will heal better and the skin will adhere and heal, but until then he will have this slice open on his leg. We had to make another appointment for this injury at the burn center for Friday. We've got instructions on how to care for it. The surgeon thinks it would be fine and was really calm through the emergency. The other staff were pretty wide-eyed as was I.

This was just another surprise injury that the burn keeps on giving us. I'll end with this extra picture so you can enjoy the thrill of seeing a big-ass blister. Next time you get a little booboo blister on your toe think of this and you'll know it can always be a lot worse.

Luckily (if there's an upside) we were in a hospital and had very competent staff deal with it immediately. Poor Daniel. But I'm glad this didn't happen at home as it would have taken a lot more time to get relief for Daniel. And I will state that as soon as the blister was burst open (staff were standing back like 'it was gonna blow') Daniel seemed to really relax and let them finish up with the dressing.

Daniel is being given some space and we'll let him relax the rest of the day since this was a pretty freaky moment. We hope he doesn't pair this incident with 'bad things always happen at this hospital place'. That's all for now.