Burn Unit Day 1: Part 1

So I finally have a medical related story to tell where the protagonist is... your’s truly. Me. And so here we go....

Day 1 Part 1:
The car door closed, and the sound echoed in the parking garage.
Scrubs: Check
I.D.: Check
Butterflies in the Stomach: Check
And so began my decent down to the hospital. This was not my first visit there. I had been several times before. Except this time was different. This visit was the real deal. I was going to see medicine. I was going to take part in medicine. I was going to learn.
I was making my way to the Burn Unit, a unit notorious for gruesome scenes but the highest probability for hands-on activity. I never intended to do the Burn Unit; however, when my Pathology setup fell through, I switched units against my better judgement.

I entered the hospital and began to traverse the long halls and labyrinth of floors and interconnected buildings. I tried to walk with confidence, to walk with a sense of belonging. I made a wrong turn and was put back in my place, a mere freshman in college who was simply a volunteer on his first real day.
Let’s face it, I was lost. A nurse rounded the corner so I quickly asked her for directions.
“Excuse me, do you know where I am supposed to go to volunteer for the Burn Unit? I am a student from Rhodes.”
“Um let me see. Beth would know, she is usually in control of our volunteers.”
I followed her into the Burn ICU. She began to ask around and a few nurses began to get greedy.
“Does anyone need a volunteer?”
“Nope. If he were here just a little bit earlier I would have had something for him to do.”
“He can help change linens” a nurse said with a smile.
“Um this is my first day, I have never been here before. I think I was supposed to be back in the other section, not the ICU. We are authorized to come to the ICU but I think I should be back over there.”
“Alright let’s go see.”
We walk through a set of double doors and a nurse walks out of one of the patient’s rooms.
“Ah, there she is. Hey Beth, here is a volunteer for you.”
She smiles. “Good, you can come help me with some wound care.” It hasn’t even been thirty minutes and I am already about to see something gross. They were not lying.
“Hi, I’m Alex. I’m new and I’ve never been here before.”
“That’s fine! Everybody has to start somewhere. The patient we are about to see has burned his foot with acid, suspected meth. Supposedly he fell asleep while cooking and the acid burned all the skin on his foot. Let’s go.”
The only words/thoughts that were running through my head were ‘oh my god.’ We walked into the room. The patient was a male, mid 30’s, and looked a bit tired. His foot was wrapped with ACE bandages and he had some burns on his shoulder/under arm area. The nurse was trying to remove the bandage on the arm. It was some sort of sticky-like bandage that looked like flattened pipe insulators. She removed as much as she could until a small portion was stuck.
“Does your arm itch? Is it itchy? It’s dry and beginning to peel. This means that it’s healing!” As she was talking she was peeling off skin that was coming loose from his shoulder. “This is Alex, he is a volunteer. Is it okay if he observes while I change your dressing?” The patient complied. “Alright, now let’s take a look at your foot. Alex, will you unwrap the ACE bandage?”
“Sure.” I had no idea how to unfasten it. I had been trying to brace myself against the sink in case I fainted. I have a brief history of fainting. I walked over towards the foot. I couldn’t find where to undo it. “Where does this come apart?”
“Oh, you just separate the velcro. Be careful, his foot is really tender.” I start to unravel the bandage. Thankfully there was a gauze wrap underneath the bandage I was unraveling. As soon as I carefully removed the ACE bandage I stopped, threw away the old bandage, and stepped away back towards my haven, the sink.
“You can do the next one” I said to the nurse.
“Alright.” She began to unravel the gauze wrap. The suspense was building. I wasn’t sure what was going to be underneath. I expected the entire foot to be burned and appear the texture of Freddy Kruger’s face or something like that of which one sees on television. I was wrong.

As she was unraveling, I observed that most of the foot was in normal condition. It was then that the heel of his foot was revealed, and then the sole of his foot. The entire outer layer was burned away. She continued to unravel and I noticed the gauze was becoming bloody. Then the worst that I could imagine happened. The gauze was stuck to his foot. Stuck. At that moment I was thankful that I had let her unravel it. I mean, can you imagine if I had done it? He probably would have screamed if I ripped it off and then  I would have freaked out and probably puked on his wounds. Epic fail. Anyway, here’s how it really happened. It was stuck. So she pulled ever so slightly and it came loose, but not without gushing blood. I braced myself. She kept talking to the patient making sure she wasn’t putting him through any discomfort. Strategy duly noted. She looked over to me, standing there speechless.

“Can you grab a rag and moisten it a bit? I need..” [Correction] “We need to clean off his foot to prep for the new bandage. There are some towels over there. Just moisten it in the sink.”
“Would you like warm water or cold water?” I had no idea what kind of water to use. I thought, warm would be good because who doesn’t like a warm rag? But then I wondered if cold would be better since it is a burn???
“Just kind of get it in-between.”
“Alright.” I turned toward the sink and turned it on. Water began spewing everywhere and I was making a hot mess of an environment that was supposed to remain clean. I was freaking out. Here I was, first time ever volunteering in a hospital and I look like a fool over by the sink with water getting everywhere. I might as well have just started flailing my arms. “Um... this water is going crazy....” The nurse had to drop what she was doing and come over to help. She obviously had experience with the sinks because she turned them ever so slightly and the water was suddenly under her command.”
Again... speechless. For the next few minutes I think I just completely blanked out because I have no recollection of her cleaning his foot off with the towel. Only then was I slapped in the face with a new objective.
“Alex, can you grab the aloe over there by the sink?” I grabbed it and brought it over. “Alright, now just squirt some into your glove and apply it all on the bottom of his foot. Just cover it from the tips of his toes down to his heel.”
“Um.. okay....” Now I was completely freaked because now there was a real chance that I might actually do some damage. I sensed that she probably knew I was wondering how on earth I was supposed to comfortably apply a large amount of aloe to the bottom of a skinless foot without making the patient scream. So she gave a tip.
“Just touch it like you would touch a baby.” This didn’t really make any sense to me because
1. Babies have skin.
2. I don’t touch babies often.
3. A baby? Why not something like an ancient stick of dynamite that could explode at any second??
Anyway, whatever. I did as she said and squirted a liberal amount of aloe into my glove and scooped some up with my fingers. I decided to pretend like I was finger painting the most fragile piece of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. (Random. I know, but it worked). As I was painting... I mean, applying, parts of skin started to come off on my glove. I decided that I would ignore this fact entirely and just continue. This strategy worked as well. Before I knew it I was done.

“Okay! All done,” I said with a sigh of relief. I was quite thrilled with myself.
“Okay great!” She then got out new bandages and we opened them up and applied them to the newly clean foot. All fresh. This made my OCD side happy. “Now all we need to do is change the linens and his gown. Here is an extra gown. Can you change his gown while I go and get some fresh sheets?”
“Um sure.” Okay, change a gown. Not a big deal. However, seeing as I don’t work in a hospital and am not a nurse and do not see naked people all the time, seeing naked people isn’t something I wanted to do right off the bat. Call me immature, but hey, it was my first time working in healthcare! Anyway, I came up with a quick plan in my head. I would lay the new gown on top and we would slide the old gown out from underneath. It would be a piece of cake. I wouldn’t have to see any nude parts!
WRONG.

I put the new gown on top. “Okay, so what we will do is just slide the old gown out from underneath this one.” The patient had no grievances with the plan. I began to tug on the gown and it would not come free. That was when I discovered that it was tied around his neck. Duh. How stupid. “Could you sit up a bit please, I need to untie this one so we can slide it off.” The patient complied and I continued with the master plan. I started to slide the gown some more and it became stuck again. “WHAT NOW!” I thought to myself. I tugged some more. Then as I began to inspect the old gown I noticed that there were wires hung up in it. “Oops. Now what am I supposed to do...”  I decided to keep tugging and tried to untangle as well as find the source of the wires. Then there it was. I saw some nudity. Goal failed. It would happen sometime or another. So I just kept doing my job. Who cares. It’s medicine. Finally most of the gown came free and I found what had been sticking. It was those sticky round things that monitor your heart rate and other vital information. They had come off. I notified a nurse who had walked into the room.
“Um... excuse me. These things came off...”
“Oh, it’s okay. We’ll put them back on in a second.”
Phew. I was relieved. Then the patients monitor showed a flatline. I freaked for a bit but remembered that I had removed the “thingys.” The nurse turned the machine off. All better. I threw away the old gown and fastened the new one on the patient. Done!
Beth returned with the bed linens.
“Let’s change the linens!”
She gave me a rundown on how the linens were supposed to go on in a specific order so quickly that I obviously don’t remember what it was or else I would have wrote it.
I know there was the sheet that goes around the bed, and then there was a special sheet that goes next in case the patient has an accident, then there was another sheet and then sheet that goes on top of the patient. So there is a general idea.
We put the linens on and finished the visit with the foot patient. All done. On to new things.