Hot Hot Hot

Sorry for the long post. This is over 2 weeks worth of information.

The day after Thanksgiving Bella had a horrible accident. She touched the face of a very hot oven and ended up burning both her palms. She was immediately rushed to the ER, packed in ice, bandaged up, and sent home with Tylenol with codine. She ended up with severe 2nd degree and slight 3rd degree burns.

As requested by the ER, we made a return visit the following day. It was very hard to see her damaged hands, in fact... it made me a little sick. I'll spare you the gruesome picture of her raw hand. But Bella remained in good spirits most of the time.

At the Oakdale ER for the second timeAt home, loaded with lots of drugs.

During our return visit to the Oakdale ER we were giving a referral to Shriner's Children's Hospital in Sacramento...Burn Unit. So, 3 days after the incident we headed to Shriner's. It was here the real drama started. They debrided her hand (removing all the loose/ bad tissue), cleaned it (aka scrubbing it with a wash cloth), then bandaged it up. They told us we had to clean her hands 2 times a day and do physical therapy 3 times a day, stop giving her Tylenol with codine and stick to the regular stuff, and if it didn't heal properly within 2 weeks she may have to have a skin graft. The reason for the physical therapy is so that it doesn't scar and limit her hand movement permanently. This first visit to Shriner's was such an awful experience, it's permanently seared in our memories. Seeing her tortured was hard, but it had to happen in order for her to heal properly. So... we headed home to begin our healing journey.

Bella's left hand, the less damaged one.Bella's right hand, the more seriously burned hand, with blisters on every fingertip.
One week into her recovery, she's gripping her cup just fine...
...and she's finally crawling again, with a slight variation. Can't nobody hold her down.

Due to the fact that the blister on her left hand popped and was nearly healed, we were told during our second visit to Shriner's that we can remove that bandage and just lotion it up 3-4 times a day. Hooray for one recovered hand.

Bella hanging out in the truck before our third and last visit to Shriner's. Here's hoping we receive good news and don't need a skin graft.

And good news came. She's totally healed. No skin graft is needed. Now we only have to continue to do massage therapy and physical therapy 3 times a day. We have a follow up appt in January, but the worse of it is over, and she's back to crawling normally. Thank you to everyone who continued to pray for Bella during this process. We totally believe that it's through all the prayers that she healed so quickly and so well.

Bella's healed right hand.