Sunday, July 31st

Mary is plugging along! She had an actual shower today, which she really enjoyed. We had wondered if the shower stream would be painful, but she evidently loved it. I can only imagine. She also assisted with her wound care today, unwrapping her own bandages. She said she didn't even cry! Her legs are continuing to heal well, although the doctors have commented that they are healing a little slow. There are a couple of places that the wounds are still a little deeper than they'd like at this point, but no reason for any concern. And she walked a lot today, using only her cane. She'll be zipping around in no time!

Here are another couple of hazy quotes from Mary this past week: "Salt has 89 calories, 99 from fat." ... "Are there bowls in my room? (answered - what do you mean, for your cereal?) No, the bulls. Like torro torro." :)

Saturday, July 30th

Another day of some pretty good progress for Mary today. As has been the case throughout this entire recovery, she is definitely improving gradually, but there are constant set backs and ups and downs. So each day she continues to be able to do new things, but she also struggles with other things. But she continues to press on. Yesterday she was able to walk to her afternoon physical therapy with her walker, and she actually walked back with a cane. Which is just so amazing to me, because I saw what she was able to do (or not able to do!) just two days ago! This morning her legs were bleeding, which was not usual. She was pretty worried about it, especially when they didn't allow her to go to physical therapy, and they had to unwrap her legs to see what was the matter. Thankfully it turned out that there was nothing the matter, no reason for alarm, and she was able to continue on throughout the day as usual. She again walked down to physical therapy, but for some reason wasn't able to do quite as much stretching and bending as yesterday. Again...the ups and downs. Kyle was able to wheel her outside tonight to see the sunset, and she really loved that. As for her projected date of coming home? I think she's going to make it home this week! Another girl that was badly burned in the accident was released from the burn unit today, and they figured that she was 2-3 days ahead of Mary's progress. They are planning on having Mary assist in changing her dressings tomorrow, so they are definitely moving toward her becoming less dependent on the hospital staff. They are also planning on letting her have a real live shower tomorrow! I'm sure she's very excited about that!

Another couple of funny medicine induced Mary sayings for tonight..."Am I at Taco Bell?"....."How old am I" ... (crying out in her sleep)"Ouch! I just got stung by a bee!" ... "Are there turkey's pecking my feet? (answered - no Mary) Oh good. I don't want them to.":)

Friday, July 29th

This is exciting news, people!! Mary has had a GREAT day!! But before I get to all this great news, I should say that the day sure didn't start out that way. At 5:45, when my mom arrived at Mary's room, Mary looked like death. She was extrememly pale, her kidneys had actually started shutting down, and she was really doing poorly. It was a scary start to the day. As Stephanie mentioned in yesterday's post, Mary has had a difficult time digesting and processing her food. And this one fact, seemingly unrelated to her burns, has completely hampered her recovery. She has been back on IV fluids, off solid food, and had been needing more blood during the last couple days. She even had her belly x-rayed yesterday to try and determine what the problem was. Well, I am happy to report that whatever the problem was, she has passed it!! She also had her dressing changed this morning on her legs, and she was able to tolerate it without being put under. Comparing that to three days ago? Amazing! She had a chance to see her legs today as well, for the first time after her surgery, and she took it quite well. She was asking the doctors a lot of questions, and seemed to handle the sight better than the rest of us have! It was a miraculous day, considering how far she came from 6:00am - 2:00pm. By 2:00 she had been completely taken off her IVs, she was eating food (ordered Wendy's for dinner), and was moving around with her walker. What a huge relief!! Thank you (again!) to all of you for your prayers and concern for Mary. I was able to spend some time with her this past week, and I admit that I was a little worried about seeing her. I was afraid that it would just be too sad. But I found it really comforting to see her. Her spirits lifted mine! She is doing so well mentally, and she is determined to not let this accident define her life. I'm really amazed at her attitude.

Tonight we were all sitting around talking about Mary (we haven't talked about much else lately!), and my mom pulled out a list of quotes and conversations that she's had with Mary over the past week and a half, while Mary has been heavily medicated. We all had a good and much needed laugh at some of these comments. So over the course of the next several days, I'll share a quote on the blog - we can't forget this stuff! So tonight I'll kick it off with a funny little thing that she woke up saying the other night, out of the blue: " Did I learn Spanish? Am I a missionary?" :)

Second Thursday

Yay! Pictures of Mary from today courtesy of Kacee! Love that smile....

And the beautiful hairdo she's sporting.....
As you can see, Mary was able to be wheeled outside today! I'll bet the sunshine never felt so good! Mary also started physical therapy today. Apparently she did quite a bit of stretching, bending, lifting, and even some walking with the help of a walker. My mom said they were pushing her pretty hard and she was able to keep up! She will now be doing this physical therapy twice a day. They also told her she would need to do this for the next 6-9 months....obvioiusly not in the hospital, but on her own.

Mary's donor sites, which are the areas on Mary's body (her back and sides) that they took the skin from to put on her legs, continue to heal nicely. The doctor commented that it took quite a bit of skin to cover those long legs.....he said kind of like doing skin grafts for a giraffe.....that girl is all legs! :)

Although Mary's spirits are great and her skin grafts and donor sites are healing well, her health has been declining the last day or two. Her insides are not quite working normally.....food is not digesting as it should. Because of this, she hasn't been eating or drinking much the last two days. This has caused her to be put back on IV fluids, and she had to have another unit of blood today. We are hoping things get moving in a better direction tomorrow. The next wound care and bandage change is tomorrow. They're hoping to do this without putting her under, but if she isn't feeling better they might have to. Hang in there Mary....we love you!!

Second Wednesday

This morning the doctor sedated Mary to do wound care and change her bandages. My mom said even under sedation her legs were jerking and twitching. They also took all the staples out. They said the skin grafts look great and everything is healing as it should. After that, Mary slept a lot. When she woke up she was feeling pretty good. She stood up!! She was able to stand for about 10 minutes and marched a little in place. Tomorrow she will be starting the physical therapy....not sure exactly what that entails. Friday is the next bandage change, and they will attempt to do that without putting her under. They are still talking about discharging her next week sometime, around August 4. Of course that depends on how she does between now and then. Keep up the good work Mary!!

Tuesday

After a great day yesterday, today started off pretty bad. They attempted to do "wound care" and change Mary's bandages without her being put under. They gave her as much pain medication as they could, but it was still too unbearable. This was, as you can imagine, extremely hard for my mom to watch. After a while of screaming and crying, the doctor finally said they needed to stop. She had already eaten breakfast, however, and so they could not put her under. So they did not change the bandages today. They are planning to put her under tomorrow and do it. After a rough morning, she slept a lot and then woke up feeling okay. Mary actually put make-up on for the first time today! My sister Kacee and her kids drove down to vistit today and I think Mary was very excited to see them. She was able to be put on a "traveling bed" and wheeled around a little bit. I'm sure it did her a world of good to be out of her room for a while. She did, however, throw up while out and about....so that wasn't too great. But the day ended MUCH better than it started! After they change her bandages tomorrow they are also going to try and have her stand and maybe even try walking. I'm sure that will be difficult, but they don't want to wait much longer before having her put some weight on her legs and bend her knees. We know you can do it Mary!! We'll all be sending our good vibes your way!

Monday, July 25th

I am happy to report that Mary has had a great day today!! Her pain has been much less, she has been much more alert, and according to my mom the difference between yesterday and today has been remarkable. We are so thankful! Yesterday the motion of moving the bed from a horizontal position to a sitting position was extremely painful for her, yet today she was able to lift her legs enough to move the pillows underneath them. Way to go Mary! We also got a bit of a "schedule" for her recuperation during the rest of her time in the hospital. I thought it would be helpful to pass this information along in case any of you out there have plans to visit Mary. Every day between 7-8, both am and pm, she is visited by the doctor for an exam. So not even my mom can be in the room during that time. Then, starting tomorrow, she will have wound care every morning at 9:00 and physical therapy at 11:00am. So mornings will be full of work for Mary, with no spare time for visits. She definitely loves visits, and can officially start having visitors again tomorrow, but afternoons are the best and the time for each visit should be limited. There's no official "time limit," but Mary is still recuperating from a major trauma and will need time to rest during the day. And we all know Mary - she'd want to keep chatting and talking all day - but as the big sisters and official blog writers, we are asking that everybody keep in mind her need to rest if visiting. And I'll be taking my own advice when I drive down to see her tomorrow! I'm hoping she'll let me snap a couple of pictures while I'm there, since I know it will be comforting for everybody to see her face! Stephanie or I will post more tomorrow evening, and will continue to keep you all up to date on her recovery. Thank you to all of you for your concern for Mary!!

Sunday

Mary hasn't had a great day today, but I imagine that there are bound to be many highs and lows throughout her recovery. Her pain has been pretty bad, and she has been very uncomfortable. Much worse than yesterday. They increased her pain meds to compensate, and so she has slept much more than normal today. But the good news of today was that the doctors unwrapped her legs and the skin grafts are looking good - normal for this stage. The next dressing change will be on Tuesday, so again we will know more then. But it is looking promising. She had to receive a couple more units of blood today, so she is still losing a lot of blood from the donor sites. It's just awful to think about, I know! The doctors have told us that if all continues to go well, and if she continues to heal at the expected rate, then she could be released from the hospital in as early as two weeks. At that time she will return home to Eagle, and continue her outpatient care here. We are all hoping and praying that this will happen, and that she will be well enough to come home that soon. Our family would like to especially thank the Eagle 6th ward for holding a special fast on Mary's behalf today. We know that the prayers for Mary's recovery are being heard, and that the Lord has and will continue to bless her throughout this ordeal.

Saturday

Well here we are to Saturday already. Last night was a little rough, Mary didn't sleep much. Today, however, seemed to go really well! Mary is awake a lot more than we all thought she'd be. She seems to be in really good spirits and is sounding a lot like her old self! My mom said Mary is arguing and being annoyed with my mom so she knows it's the same old Mary! :) Last night, however, they decided to change the pad underneath Mary and so called in 6 nurses to help turn her and replace the pad. During the move one of the nurses accidentally bumped Mary's foot and my mom said she'd never heard a more painful scream and crying from poor Mary. :( It took a while to get her calmed down from that. In fact, we're told the only thing that pulled her out of hysterics was talking about her boyfriend Kyle..... She did need two units of blood today. The doctors and nurses have mentioned several times that it's such a good thing she is young and healthy (and we added, in love)......just seems to be bouncing right back! They also moved her to a new room that has an outside window which has been great for seeing some sunshine!
Hang in there Mary!

Friday

Sorry that it has taken so long today to get this blog updated. We knew that it was going to be a rough night for our mom, so we just hated to call her today in case she was sleeping (which she wasn't). Anyway, here is what we have just found out about Mary's night last night and day today. As we guessed, it was a very rough night for her. She was able to sleep pretty soundly from about 10:00-2:00, but at 2:00 she woke up and was very agitated. She kept trying to pull her tubes out, she was very uncomfortable and very disoriented. She was still halucinating and saying things that didn't make any sense, and she was awake and in this state from 2:00am-7:00am. Finally she fell asleep at 7:00, and when she woke up things started to go better. One minor hiccup was that her feeding tube became clogged and so she was not receiving any nutrition for a few hours. And since the doctors had continuously stressed the importance of good nutrition to her healing, the first course of action was to replace the feeding tube. But since Mary was already in such a great deal of pain, she and my mom convinced the doctors to let her try eating instead. The doctors told Mary that if she could eat 2000 calories a day then they would not need to insert another feeding tube. And you know how Mary likes a challenge! So she ate a good lunch and a huge dinner. She had a really good afternoon, and was awake and pretty coherant between 4:00pm-6:00pm. She was talking and even laughed a few times, and acting very much like Mary. What a huge relief!! My mom is really hopeful and optimistic that she will have a much better night tonight. We've both been surprised at how awake she has been during the past 24 hours of recovery. We had really thought that she would be so heavily sedated that she would practically be comatose. But that has not been the case. The pain is really horrific, but the medication they are giving her seems to really be helping her to cope. As I've mentioned earlier, she is not allowed to move or be moved for three days. She is lifting little four pound weights with her arms, as the only part of her physical therapy that she is able to do right now. As for how the she is healing, and how successful the surgery was, we won't know that until Sunday. On Sunday we will really find out a lot. They will put her under one more time and unwrap her legs and donor sites. If she were awake during the unwrapping, the pain would be unberarable. So they will put her under and unwrap everything, and see how her legs have accepted the skin grafts. We'll know a lot more then. But for now her legs are securely wrapped in ace bandages, and all of the donor sites are covered with some type of dressing. My mom thinks that the worst part of this healing and not being able to move is the oozing and seeping from all the donor sites. She can't move, be cleaned, or have the dressing changed. The oozing is perfectly normal, and good even, but extremely disgusting. And she'll be hanging in it until Sunday! So that is all I know! Possibly too much detail for some, but I know that others are wanting to know every little thing. I personally feel a huge sense of relief tonight, knowing that she had such a good afternoon. I hope we all sleep a lot better tonight! Thanks for checking in on Mary! It means so much to her, and to all of us, to know of all the love and concern that has been shown to Mary and our family. Thank you!!!

Out of surgery!

Mary is out of surgery. We have been on pins and needles all afternoon, waiting for an update. Here is what we know so far. The surgery was over 5 hours long. They took strips of skin from her shoulder blades all the way down, a patch of skin from her stomach, and the two remaining patches of skin from her thighs. So she has several donor sites rather than one, which is not great, but I guess they needed all of that to cover her legs. The skin was put into a machine and stretched and made into some sort of a mesh, which was then used to cover the burned portions of her legs. They used glue and staples to hold it in place. That's all I know about the actual procedure. As for how she's doing now - she is semi-awake, in a lot of pain, is very loopy and halucinating, and is needing constant watching. She has about a million tubes coming out of her - a feeding tube, oxygen, IVs - and she keeps trying to rip them out. She also keeps forgetting to breathe. During the time that I talked to my mom, my mom had to tell her to breath 5 times. So my mom will not be leaving her side all night, I'm sure. Nor will she be coming home this weekend. Mary's blood pressure and heart rate are all over the place, and she is obviously in a bit of distress. The doctors have explained the situation like this: she has burns on 30% of her body, donor sites on 20% of her body, so 50% of her body has endured major trauma. When put like that, it's easy to see why her body is in distress! But we feel confident that she will continue to fight and endure, and hopefully heal as quickly as possible. Through the night and tomorrow she wil be very heavily sedated, but on Friday night they will taper off on the really heavy meds. Unfortunately the pain will be far from over. She will not be able to move or be moved for three days, not even to change the dressing. She will not be allowed visitors, except for very immediate family members, for 5 days. I'm sure that you all feel very helpless, as we do, but I know that the best thing we can all do for her now is to continue to pray for her. We will update again tomorrow after we hear how her night went.

Mary's address

We had a request for Mary's address down in Salt Lake so that she could receive letters or cards. So for anyone interested, here it is:

University Health Care
Burn Center
C/O Mary Thompson
50 North Medical Dr.
Salt Lake City, UT 84132

Mary should be in surgery within the hour. She has been very nervous today, as are all of us. The fact that she was able to walk yesterday really boosted her spirits, and it seemed to wake her body and mind up as well. She was awake for several hours in the late afternoon/evening yesterday, which has not been common. But that fact that she has had to wait all day today, with no food or drink, for an afternoon surgery, just allowed her more time to feel nervous. The surgery should last about 3 hours. We are all thinking of you, Mary!!

Wednesday

Mary walked today!!  After a slow morning where she apparently had passed out while trying to sit up, she must have gained some strength and was able to walk around quite a bit.  This is very exciting news! As far as we know, surgery is still scheduled for tomorrow.  I'm sure both Mary and my mom are both very nervous and anxious tonight.  We will be really praying tonight and tomorrow that things go well and Mary is able to come through it like a champ!

Tuesday

Mary's surgery has been scheduled! She will be having her surgery on Thursday, and contrary to what I posted earlier, the doctors are hoping that this one surgery will go well enough that she will not need any additional surgeries.  Again the doctor warned her (and all of us) that the few days after the surgery will be excruciating.  They will need to use most of the skin from her back in order to reconstruct her legs.  And of course she has to lie on her back! They have some burn pads that she will sleep on, and they will need to be changed every 2 hours.  It is going to be rough, and she won't be able to move or even have visitors for 3-5 days.  But at least she can start the healing process.  They attempted to have her stand and put weight on her legs again today, and she was able to stand for 1 minute and 35 seconds.  Not a real long time, but compared to yesterday we were thrilled.  She is also eating and drinking now - had a turkey sandwich with soup for lunch - so the doctors will now be able to have her start on a different and better kind of pain medication.  Our mom was able to get a few things from home delivered to her today - some clothes, make up, and medicine - and she was certainly happy about that.  Again, she is wants us to thank all of you for the kind words and offers to help.  She wishes she could talk to each of you personally, and thank you herself and give updates herself, but it just isn't possible.  So please accept our thanks on her behalf! 

News from the home front

Many of you have been concerned for Masen, wondering if there is anything you can do to help.  Well, as luck would have it (or lack thereof), Kacee - that's me - and her kids are arriving Tuesday evening for their annual trip to grandma's house from Texas.  So we will be staying at the house, hopefully keeping Masen occupied and happy with nieces and nephews to play with.  We'll make sure he is fed and taken care of, and we've all promised our mom that we will continue to have fun without her - although it will never be the same! But for the kid's sake we will carry on and enjoy our time with Masen and cousins as much as we can.  Our brother Blake and his family will be arriving next week, along with our grandma and aunt next weekend, and we are excited for all of them to come.  If you have any questions or would like to talk to either me or Stephanie (who will practically be moving in) you can call one of our cell numbers.  It's hard for our mom to take many calls at the hospital. Thanks again for your offers to help and for your concern!

Kacee - (210) 445-8669
Stephanie - (208) 371-2375

Links to news reports about the accident

There have been several news stories and articles about the accident Saturday night, but those of you outside of Utah may not have seen them.  Here are a few of the links that will give you a better idea of what happened.  

Here is a link to the most thorough article I've seen, although it's tough to say how accurate it is and how Mary and her friends fit into the mix:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52208070-78/shaft-cannon-mine-gasoline.html.csp

Two news reports from KSL News:

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=16420746

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=16443121

It's hard to imagine, knowing the tragic results, how they could have possibly thought this was a good idea.  But be honest - who hasn't done something careless or risky, that just didn't turn out so badly? Maybe not with fire, but we have all pushed the limits and have gotten lucky.  So there's no sense in our vilifying the people in this case either.  It just does no good, and certainly won't help Mary's recovery. We definitely hope that this "activity" that is popular among college students will end before somebody else is hurt.  Of those that were injured in Saturday night's accident, Mary was the most severely injured.  But Kyle, Mary's boyfriend, was also burned quite badly on his hands.  A few other friends and students were released from the hospital on Monday from their injuries, while one or two remain in the burn unit.  We wish them all a quick recovery as well.

Monday

We were happy to hear that Mary's feet were getting enough blood flow and did not require that her legs were cut. There hasn't been a lot of good news so far, so we were happy with this. The nurses need to change the dressing on her legs twice a day, and it is very painful. They tell her to hold her breath as long as she can, but eventually the tears just come. It is very hard for our mom to see. Not only seeing Mary in such pain, but seeing the state of her legs. They have no skin on them. With the exception of two small patches of skin on the front of her thighs, the rest of her skin is gone. It will require skin grafts to cover the rest. The doctor came in today to talk to Mary about what will be required in order to help her heal. He basically informed her that this is only the beginning, and the worst pain is yet to come - evidently at the sites where skin is removed for the skin grafts. Mary started the day with a fever, and the doctors are concerned that her legs might be getting infected. So we will pray that doesn't happen. Also today they attempted to have her try to stand up and put weight on her legs. It did not work. She passed out both times they tried. So they will try again another day. She still spends most of her day sleeping, heavily sedated, but had periods where she was awake and coherent. A counselor came to talk to her about the importance of keeping a positive attitude and the likelihood of depression. Mary was pretty loopy for this visit, but we were assured there would be many more such visits. We also heard today that the possibility of doing surgery within the next few days was likely. So although we know it will be painful and difficult for Mary, we think it's better to just get it done and get her recovering. Our mom wants to thank everybody for the thoughts, prayers, and well wishes. She has felt very supported and comforted through all of this, and is so grateful to all of you.

Sunday

On Sunday night Mary was in fairly good spirits despite getting some pretty bad news from the doctors. They had removed her bandages earlier in the day, and we were very hopeful that the news would be good. Unfortunately the burns were worse than they had originally thought. Where they originally thought that she had third degree burns just below the knees, it was now apparent that she had third degree burns on about 30% of her body - from thighs to ankles. Anybody who has read anything about burns knows that she is in for a long road of recovery. She will likely be in the burn unit in Salt Lake for over a month, and it will be filled with many surgeries and a lot of pain. And of course, a lifetime of rehabilitation and adjusting to her "new normal." Aside from all this, we are all grateful that she is alive and that the burns were localized to her legs. Her face and vital organs were spared. As Sunday night drew to a close, the doctors were concerned that her feet (which were not burned) were not getting enough blood flow to them. We were informed that they would check them through the night, and if there were signs that they were not getting enough circulation then they would need to make long incisions in her legs - on the outside and inside of both legs, from thigh to ankle. So that night we all focused our prayers on her feet, and her legs not needing to be cut. Through it all, Mary's mom was there at her side, as well as Kyle and his family. She was asleep most of the time, heavily drugged on pain meds, but when she was awake she was in fairly good spirits. She was not able to eat or drink, and had some vomiting, due to getting pain medication every hour. That was the way we ended the day on Sunday.

Terrible Accident

Please keep our sweet sister Mary in your thoughts and prayers. Late last Saturday evening Mary and some friends were at a mine shaft near Provo. There were a couple different groups of people there "firebombing." A container of gasoline spilled and a fire broke out. Several of the people there were injured and burned. Mary was transported to the burn center at the University of Utah hospital. Mary's legs sustained the worst of the burns. She is heavily medicated and still in a tremendous amount of pain. My mom is there with her. We will post more information about her condition and information from the doctors about where to go from here.

Mary, we know how strong you are and know that your stubborn attitude will be a great asset for your recovery! :) Please know how many people are thinking of you and praying for you and for the doctors that are treating you. We love you Mary!