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Enfield
May 30, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
TLDR I caught fire and spent 10 months on the hospital, have gross pics lol

There are gross hosed up pics at the bottom of this post so go away if you dont want to see them

About a year ago, I set myself on fire. I had been in a bad place for a bit, and was drinking til I blacked out  almost every night. I also had a pretty serious coke habit.  Throughout this I managed to work hard and do well at my job and was liked and respected, though everyone knew I was hosed up to some extent.  One night after a lot of alcohol and a crazy amount of cocaine I decided to off myself, so I wobbled across the street (it was morning at this point,) bought myself a can of gas and took it to my room. My roomate saw me with it. I told him to get everyone out of the house, I was going to set myself on fire, so he called the cops. I dumped a bunch of gasoline on myself.  The last thing I would experience before being unconscious for two months was annoyance at the cops for showing up and some intense pain as I lit my lighter. Luckily I almost immediately went into shock. Obviously, if I had missed my roomate coming out of the shower by a second, or if the cops had gotten stuck at a red light, Id be dead right now. But im not and I have pics of gross wounds to share with my goons.  So thats the end of the e/n poo poo, I dont really want to talk about my feelings or want psychological advice. Ill just say that im doing ok and am in no danger of harming myself or others. Ive also given up on punctuation as im typing this up on a phone sorry.

So heres a rundown on stuff I remember after waking up. This is sort of a stream of conciousness type deal. I was in the hospital for 10 months so theres a lot and ill miss stuff, but you can ask about specific things I guess. Ill start off by saying my ding dong was not in any way harmed in the fire. My first memories were of being in a bed and having crazy drug dreams, for instance I thought at one point someone was cooking soup and I hesitatently asked my nurse if I could have some. I eventually figured out that I couldnt move much and that it was december, two months after the fire.  Because I had been asleep (drug induced coma maybe) I figured the fire had happened in december.  Now I had absolutely no idea what the extent of my wounds were. I figured Id get out in time for an annual christmas party.  It wasnt until much later I learned how serious things had been. I learned I had been on dialysis because all the coke had hosed up my kidneys (theyre fine now.) I had contracted a blood infection, I got mersa, I had a hole in my throat and breathed through a tube.  There were lots of tubes, I had one in my dick and one that went into my nose and to my stomach.  I lived off tube food for a long, long time.  Because my body required crazy amounts of nutrients to heal itself, I dropped to below 100 pounds (im 6 1). I was crazy thirsty all the time.  I would spend all my waking moments lying on my back, thinking about iced tea or lemonade, and trying to fall asleep.  The pain was never too bad, as I was still taking an ungodly amount of pain meds, but it was there. I began wishing a nurse would come in to relieve the boredom, even if it was for a minute to drain my pee bag.  Things continued like this for a while.  They started giving me showers.  I think the worst parts of my hospital stay were all associated with showers.  At first, I was dumped onto a "shower table" and scrubbed down/hosed off. I put shower table in quotes because it turns out it was actually a corpse table. The incline, holes, and grooves were designed to let blood flow to the floor drain.  Well turns out they drain water just as well, so they were repurposed.

So basically showering was painful as all hell considering most of my body was still open wounds.  Even after taking enough dilauded to kill a horse, I was still brought to tears a few times. When I graduated to chair showers, things got worse.  Taking off the bandages was hell in and of itself. Theres this stuff called hydrofera blue (prbly misspelled) that is stiff as a board until you wet it.  So they slapped this on the back of my neck (which was essentially a giant open wound), it would harden, and the next morning theyd rip it off while I yelled very loudly. I then walked/was dragged into the shower, bleeding profusely, and scrubbed and sprayed down.  I began really dreading showers, which occured every other day. Things got better as I healed of course but I pretty much thrown out my throat by the end of it. Then there was debridement, which meant digging all the any dead or damaged poo poo out of my wounds. That hurt too. Every few months Id go into surgery for a skin graft.  By the end of it, My entire chest, my right arm and hand, my left hand, both my thighs and the back of my neck had been grafted. My fingers on my left hand had to be amputated.  One morning during wound care I realized the index stub and middle stub had fused together under my dressings, and I had an operation to seperate them.  Im still missing a chunk of my nose, the top of my right ear, and a hell of a lot of sweat glands (they all got burned off)

 

Eventually I was allowed to drink with my mouth, which was pure bliss, and some time after eat with my mouth. I ate processed food at first. I dont know if youve ever seen a piece of processed medical bread but its basically grey mush in the vague shape of a piece of bread.  I kept inagining they had a mush loaf somewhere and were slicing off pieces, pouring processed lettuce and ham out of beakers and making gross hosed up sandwiches. After a while the food gradually got more solid until i could eat anything i could fit into my tiny mouth.  I was given a double dose of an appetite stimulate called megace and started eating ungodly amounts of food, like 3 big plates of speghetti for a single meal.  I ate icecream basically all the time to keep myself sated.  I went from 100 or so pounds up to 180.  Eventually I started walking around on a walker.  I very slowly made my way to walking by myself, showering, feeding, dressing myself, all that jazz.  And thats about it.

 

Before I say anything else id like to talk about the people who cared for me all this time.  The nurses were all professional, knowledgeable, and worked their asses off. They genuinely cared about me and my well being. One nurse in particular, a burn survivor herself, picked up on a lot of things early on that might have been devastating just by being so invested in my well being. My doctor/surgeon was very, very good at her job and I never once had any complications with my surgeries. On top of this they were all really cool people and Im lucky to still be close friends with a lot of them.
Actually there was one instance where my doctors advice was questionable. Towards the end of my treatment a big ol gaping wound opened up on my neck and promptly became infected. Cleaning it was impossible. The first time they tried wiping the gunk off it I screamed, buckled up, and began shaking and sobbing. It was probably the most intense pain Ive consciously experienced. Well my doctor came to take a look and told the nurse to put peroxide on it, it wouldnt hurt and it would keep the wound clean. I know gently caress all about medicine but i do know peroxide actually hurts an awful lot when splashed on a open wound. My nurse, to my utter relief, opted to just bandage it. I really cant imagine how painful the peroxide would have been.

Ok so here is some pictures.

This is my neck after maybe 6 months in the hospital. Those pink strandy things at the very left is healing happening. Someone feel free to explain this or anything, as I dont know crap about this stuff despite having 500 wound cares done and having most everything explained to me.


Hey! It got infected and now it hurts a hell of a lot and is constantly weeping strange fluids. Looks good enough to eat!


A few days after that last gross picture was taken they scraped some skin off my rear end and stapled it to my head. ALL of those staples had to be yanked out. Thats another instance where i was brought to tears.


Things are going great and now my neck looks like a snake with gangrene shed its skin. At this point it got real itchy and my bed was constantly covered with skin flakes. I should also mention I had really bad dandruff due to the dry hospital air. Like, after a shower, id comb what hair I had and huge white clumps of dead skin come off with the comb. Just thought you might want to know? Im trying to be thourough.




A couple more head pics. All of my pictures were taken of things I couldnt see for myself, so i dont have a lot of thigh wounds and the like. These wounds are a lot more interesting tho imo

Things are going great, except for the hole in the back of my head. At least it cant get worse, right?

Yeah then this fucker shows up. Despite its pleasing orb like shape it basically set me back a month. (the bottom one, for some reason the top one wasnt so bad). It came out of nowhere, hurt like loving hell, and took forever to go away. We started doing MIST THERAPY on it which is basically witch majick that involves blasting apart the bad poo poo with ultrasound waves and a cool breezy puff of water vapor. Its a painless, extremely effective debridement technique and im very lucky and thankful it was available to me.

Wow, now its bigger and covered in slime. Thats good, right

This one looks worse than it is. That dried sulfur crap is iotazorb, which is applied topically and is supposed to break down the "bio wall" which is what the bacteria forms over the wound to protect itself.

My head hole got bigger and is encrusted with scabs and iotazorb. This is about as big as it gets.

Heres the side of my head before it was grafted. Its lumpy because of hyper granulation. That means its too granulated.

My forearm. Was never grafted and i still have a little bit that hasnt healed.

My upper arm, not too bad. You can see the remnants of my half sleeve tattoo.

My hand! Luckily im right handed. Guess ill be drawing some small rear end thanksgiving turkeys this year.

Maybe youre wondering where all the skin for my grafts came some. Basically they take a cheese slicer thing, harvest some skin, punch a shitton of holes in it so itll stretch and staple it to the wound. At least thats my understanding of it. The holes are why the skin afterwards looks like "snake" skin. Oh and a lot of skin was taken from my butt so im literally a butt head. Theres so much beauty in the world

My current face. Boy i sure am glad my eyebrows grew back even if they are shorter for some reason.

So thats it. Share your own hosed up medical stories and pictures, or dont. Also ill answer some questions i guess but its a pain because im doing everything on a phone.

Enfield fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Oct 22, 2014

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Athropos
May 4, 2004

"Skeletons are Number One! Flesh just slows you down."
why the gently caress would you basically select the most painful and destructive means of killing yourself humanely possible? and on top of that, a very selfish way as you basically wanted to blaze up your roomate's stuff in the process

way to go champ

JERFit
Dec 25, 2007

if someone said they'd give me money to play music + not have a job anymore I'd say NO
Ouch op ouch

Communist Q
Jul 13, 2009

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

Owlbear Camus
Jan 3, 2013

Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?


Welp.

down n out
Sep 16, 2008

Nap Ghost
he's downplaying how it really happened..

Al Borland
Oct 29, 2006

by XyloJW
Jesus Christ you idiot.

You lit yourself on fire? WHy not bury yourself in dirt up to your neck and let ants eat you to death? Awful awful awful. Well at least you're alive still.

Oil of Paris
Feb 13, 2004

100% DIRTY

Nap Ghost
better to burn out than fade away

Oil of Paris
Feb 13, 2004

100% DIRTY

Nap Ghost
What are some of the long term complications you're looking at facing, down the road?

anchoress
Dec 24, 2011

by XyloJW
before i read anything i scrolled to the bottom to make sure it wasn't a goatse. thanks op

----------------
This thread brought to you by a tremendous dickhead!

Ovo
Dec 20, 2008

Life Rules
Better luck next time OP

verbal enema
May 23, 2009

onlymarfans.com
i set my leg on fire and had to get life flighted

I AM BRAWW
Jul 18, 2014
That poo poo cray.

breaklaw
May 12, 2008
How much was the hospital bill for all that? Can you afford that poo poo?

Fallows
Jan 20, 2005

If he waits long enough he can use his accrued interest from his savings to bring his negative checking balance back into the black.
i bet ebola doesnt look too bad now does it

George H.W. Cunt
Oct 6, 2010





I'd say it's not worth being a broken burn vic

NiceGuy
Dec 13, 2006

This is my BOOMSTICK
College Slice
Man if I was going to kill myself there wouldn't be a whole lot of things lower on the list of options than loving self-immolation.

Good job surviving I guess? Chicks are gonna dig those scars brah

luncheon meat
Oct 11, 2007

Brendan Jones, 42, Bendigo
why didn't you just shoot yourself if you live in the land of the free home of the brave?

Egoist
Aug 19, 2010

Love myself today
Let you go today
Lipstick Apathy
and i thought the table saw story was hosed up :stonk:

good luck on ur recovery op

Athropos
May 4, 2004

"Skeletons are Number One! Flesh just slows you down."

luncheon meat posted:

why didn't you just shoot yourself if you live in the land of the free home of the brave?

if he lives in america, his life is already pretty much over because of the bills

im a girl btw
Jan 15, 2004

:supaburn:

Fallows
Jan 20, 2005

If he waits long enough he can use his accrued interest from his savings to bring his negative checking balance back into the black.
were there any side effects to the megace? is an appetite stim as awesome as it sounds?

Muttonchips
Jun 5, 2014

by Shine
OP ignore all these assholes.

How are you doing now? GL with everyone man I'm glad you made it through.

I actually work in healthcare (no dox zone activate) but never have contact with burn victims in my field of work so this is fascinating. Thanks for sharing the pics.

I hope you are getting therapy. Is there a particular reason you wanted to share these?

luncheon meat
Oct 11, 2007

Brendan Jones, 42, Bendigo

Athropos posted:

if he lives in america, his life is already pretty much over because of the bills

yeah for sure. OP please tell us how much you owe for this poo poo and how it's over half a million dollars

PenguinBob
Oct 12, 2000
i'm glad you're alive and hope that you are able to stand tall in the face of adversity and build a brighter future for yourself with this profound life experience, OP

big black turnout
Jan 13, 2009



Fallen Rib
not really sure what i expected but yup

Hat Thoughts
Jul 27, 2012

Enfield posted:

About a year ago, I set myself on fire

George H.W. Cunt
Oct 6, 2010





Honestly I was hoping it was that guy who does the long ridiculous stories then at the end there is a funny twist and the thread laughs a whole bunch. It wasn't that.

Muttonchips
Jun 5, 2014

by Shine

Muttonchips posted:

OP ignore all these assholes.

How are you doing now? GL with everyone man I'm glad you made it through.

I actually work in healthcare (no dox zone activate) but never have contact with burn victims in my field of work so this is fascinating. Thanks for sharing the pics.

I hope you are getting therapy. Is there a particular reason you wanted to share these?
I am a licensed chiropractor you see

Corn Glizzy
Jun 28, 2007



And its poo poo like this thats gonna get Obamacare revoked, thanks rear end in a top hat.

Hat Thoughts
Jul 27, 2012
You've really gotta lean into the tough guy look now though

George H.W. Cunt
Oct 6, 2010





Great now I'm listening to Alicia Keys

somethingawful bf
Jun 17, 2005
the human body and modern science are both simply amazing things

Vastarien
Dec 20, 2012

Where I live is nightmare, thus a certain nonchalance.



Buglord
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQvGz6_fvA

Muttonchips
Jun 5, 2014

by Shine

SaltLick posted:

Great now I'm listening to Alicia Keys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWP0Hzat5QY

Punk da Bundo
Dec 29, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

NiceGuy posted:

Man if I was going to kill myself there wouldn't be a whole lot of things lower on the list of options than loving self-immolation.

Good job surviving I guess? Chicks are gonna dig those scars brah

lol. gonna dig those scars yeah. gonna love it.

psyopmonkey
Nov 15, 2008

by Lowtax
Im sorry OP and I hope you get better.

Manifest
Jul 7, 2007

HELLO THERE I COME FROM THE FUTURE
Did you sell your movie rights?

Wooten
Oct 4, 2004

Kind of disappointed there is no full face photo. Why did you want to destroy your roommates poo poo with your suicide?

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SplitSoul
Dec 31, 2000

psyopmonkey posted:

Im sorry OP and I hope you get better.

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