Hello Mrs. Deinhammer's Class! Thanks for all your questions - hopefully I will have a chance to answer them soon.
Many of you have asked about the photo on Day 5. Morgan took that photo and yes, that is skin that was just 'shaved' off the patient for a skin graph.
Mercy Ships treats a lot of burns here with the majority being already healed burns. If not properly treated at the time of the burn, they heal with scar tissue which causes the skin to contract and become immobile. So for example, your hand gets burned really bad and you just allow it to heal on its own. What happens is the scar tissue curls your fingers into a fist. What Mercy Ships is doing is opening the fingers, cutting out the scar tissue, and grafting on new tissue. Then they put metal rods into the finger tips to keep the fingers from moving so the graft heals properly. From there they will remove the rods and splint the hand. Each finger will get an individual splint with Velcro over each knuckle. They do a lot of OT with them during this time. The OT person we spoke with this afternoon was about to splint a 5 year old's hand as he had the metal rods removed today. She said he would scream the whole time. :(
Most of the burns are from falling into fire or hot water or boiling oil. Some are even old war burns.
Per Morgan with some more detail on the photo: Once they peel the skin off the body, they put it through the machine in the photo and that machine pokes lots of holes in the skin (Morgan called it the cheese grater) so it will stretch and fit over the wound. The nurse showed Morgan the skin before the machine and after. Morgan said after it looked like netting afterwards. They put a moist dressing over the area where they took the skin off and then wrap it up. The moist dressing attaches itself to the wound and eventually comes off when the skin regrows. After that they staple the graft over the wound. Very cool.
Tomorrow I have another cool brain surgery story for you!
Ooo so looking forward to hearing about the brain surgery. So the skin is still alive when its grafted and turned into netting? It sounds like a lot of abuse to the new skin.
ReplyDeleteIs the place you work in a hospital with all the facilities that we expect or a place that is not as advanced?
ReplyDeleteHow many metal rods do they place in the tip of the finger, and for how long?
ReplyDeleteOh wow thats amazing how they can replace the skin. It sounded gross in the beginning when I saw the picture of the stretched skin but awesome how it helps so many with burns.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness that is so cool how they treat burns. At first it sounded gross but it's really amazing! Can't wait to hear about the brain surgery!!(:
ReplyDeleteThat is amazing that they can change the skin of the burn when it is already healed with what seems like so much ease. Cant wait to hear the brain surgery story!
ReplyDelete