I’ve been meaning to post about some more of the fun stuff we did and fantastic food we ate in Sydney, but unfortunately I had a bit of a clumsy accident that has left me either busy getting to and from appointments, or totally zonked out in bed on painkillers, unable to concentrate.
I was doing a bit of a Vicks Vapour Rub steam bowl to clear out the old sinuses, when I managed to upturn the entire bowl of freshly boiled water and Vicks all over my lap. it was not pretty, let me tell you! Nor was it painless. I didn’t realise quite how bad it was, but luckily my support team managed to get me to the local polyclinic for treatment, which I am super grateful for. I don’t know how I would have coped through the night without it, the pain was incredible! I was put on a drip and dosed up with morphine and codeine and various other painkillers and anti-this-es and thats, which helped keep me in good spirits.
The whole time, I felt kind of detached from my leg, as though I was just observing the situation happen to somebody else. I only really grasped the severity when the doctor started mentioning going to the burns unit and possibly needing a skin graft. I had to wait a couple of days to go to the burns unit, as burns can take up to three days to reach their full burny potential, and they needed to be able to assess the severity before deciding on the next move.
The burns unit is at the Royal North Shore Hospital, which meant making the 3.5 hour trek back to Sydney, AGAIN. The staff there were really awesome. They cleaned up the burn and dressed it with some kind of gauze padding with silver in it to help the healing process and said I’d need to come back in three days to see if it was starting to heal on its own, or would need the graft. They were really thorough, having various different staff members like the physiotherapist come and talk to me about what I would need to do to give it the best chance at healing properly.
In the meantime, I’ve been on a variety of meds which have left me with splitting headaches at times, nausea at others, and generally just make me drowsy and spaced out. I have been concentrating on getting plenty of protein, fresh fruit and veg, vitamin c, zinc, and other goodies my body needs to heal itself. And water and fresh ginger tea for hydration and the tummy! It must be paying off, as when we tripped back to the hospital today they were pleased with the progress, saying that it will NOT be needing a graft as the skin has started to do its own thing – yay!
While this accident has put a bit of a delay on us heading north, I’m super grateful that it happened while we were around Billy’s family, who have been amazing in helping out with various things and letting us crash at their places when we need to be in Sydney, Newcastle and back here in Nelson Bay. So lucky that I have been able to rest and recover in the comfort of houses rather than the van for a while!
Hopefully I’ll get to post some nicer stuff in the next few days, but in the meantime, please be careful around hot liquids!
– x –
Little Vegan Bear 