Miss Becky's Blog

A Time to Heal ... the conclusion

This will complete the story "A Time to HEAL" about how Lauren Manning recovers from her injuries on September 11th . . . now to finish the story . . . a real true LOVE story.

HE GORGEOUS -- Mid-November 2001. By now Lauren has received skin grafts on her back from the base of her neck to her Achilles tendon. Her doctor has told me that her burn area has been reduced from 82.5 percent to 8 or 9 percent. Yes, just 8 or 9 percent. I feel like repeating that 100 times slowly. This is a credit to luck, fate, destiny, health, genetics, surgical skill and prayer. The single digits--they're where we want to be!

Lauren also had her trach tube removed. When I saw her on November 14, for the first time since September 11 she didn't have a blue hose running from her mouth or her neck to a ventilator or to a gas connection in the wall. Instead, foam dressings covered the healing wound. I said, No trach--you must be talking. She said yes.

Her voice sounded hoarse and congested, as if she had a bad cold. But it was her voice, not a whisper. Occasionally air would leak out below the dressings, and we would have to press down on them so that she could speak without any interruption (her voice would go on and off, like bad cell-phone connection).

I told her it was really great to hear her sounding like herself. And I said that I'd never suspended her cell phone, paying the bill just so I could still hear her regular voice on her message announcement. She told me, largely in her regular voice, that I was nuts.

For the first time, I fed Lauren her dinner. It resembled a meal you would see in a '60's film about deep space --three colors of gruel in different triangular sections of the plate. Yet it was a crowning achievement of hospital cuisine--pureed (make it liquid) everything so that Lauren eat it: chicken, mashed potatoes and a vegetable that apparently tasted good.

Then it came time for Tyler's first visit to the hospital. Lauren prepared for it like nothing else in her life. Her mother washed and blow-dried Lauren's hair and put lipstick on her lips. Her father went out and bought her favorite perfume so that Tyler would be more familiar with her scent after all this time. With Tyler now walking on his own, Lauren asked us to bring his lawn-mower push toy. And she wanted to wear a baseball cap so that she would look "more normal."

I entered her room before the visit to make sure she was ready. Lauren was seated in a lounge chair in her blue patient gown, sheets across her lap and a towel scented with perfume across her shoulders. Thought her forearms and hands were still in splints and casts, her smiling face peeked out at me beneath the brim of a baseball cap.

In the waiting room, Joyce, our nanny (lady hired to care for children) was with Tyler. I returned to find him at the center of a crowd or nurses and therapists, all waving and smiling at him. I had the video camera with me, so I filmed Lauren. Her mother wheeled her out of her room, turned the corner of the Burn Center, and came down the hall toward the waiting room.

Tyler was suddenly turned loose. And then he was pushing his lawn-mower toy toward his mother. Lauren could not touch Tyler because of the risk of infection, and he could not touch her. So instead of placing him on her lap, he was picked up and held near her. And Lauren, overwhelmed by happiness, said hello to him through her tears.

Tyler showed some fear at first. The staff psychologist had warned us that he would probably not recognize his mother and might be quite frightened. But he cried twice, got past it, and then he knew her. Whether it was the perfume or her voice of her face; whether it was he smile or whether he recognized her from all the photos we've shown him, he knew her. When we asked him, "Where's Mommy?" he looked at Lauren.

Tyler is a miracle. Yes, I'm his dad. But today, just shy of 13 months, he showed poise. He pushed his lawn mower back and forth across the floor, and Lauren got to see exactly what she had lived for. She kept looking at me and saying, "He's gorgeous."

There was a song she used to sing to him; I tried to sing it on her behalf but couldn't get through the first line. With Joyce pressing down on the dressings at the base of Lauren's neck so that air wouldn't hiss out of her chest, Lauren sang:

I love you in the morning and in the afternoon.

I love you in the evening and underneath the moon,

I love you, I love you, oh yes I really do,

I love you oh my darling through and through.

She made it all the way to the end. And Tyler started to dance. Kneeling, he shook his body to the music. I told him afterward, "Today you made your mother as happy as you may ever make anyone."

MOVING ON . . . Early December 2001. If you were outside in New York recently, maybe you were touched by the same breezes that touched Lauren as she sat in her wheelchair, out by the hospital's black steel benches, the grass and the tree-lined traffic circle. "I was outside--I breathed fresh air," she said. "There's a whole world out there I want to reconnect to."

Which she'll be doing shortly, when she leaves here and heads to the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, N.Y. Her total rehab will take one to two years; Her hands are the real challenge because that's where her burns were the worst. In a recent surgery, the tip of her left index finger was amputated (cut off) because it was so severely damaged.

After dinner the other night, Lauren and I talked. Mostly she gave me a to-do list--train schedules, packing details, the logistics of getting home. In the middle of it, though, I looked at her. Her skin is far more pink than it was, and the formation of tiny scars drags a bit at her lower lip. But the expression in her eyes and her smile are the same. I said, "You are just amazing."

"Thanks for staying by my side," she said with emotion.

"I'll always be by your side," I said. "I'll take care of you."

Then she said that we should grow old together and die together. "Let's not rush that day," I told her. "But, yes, we will."

For Lauren's last day at the Burn Center--December 11--she chose a white T-shirt, red drawstring pants and her tan hat to wear. She had a pressure bandage around her face, and underneath her T-shirt was a Jobst vest, a compression garment that promotes healing and minimizes scarring. For much of the next year, Lauren will need to wear a full body suit of these pressure garments.

When Dr. Yurt came in to say goodbye, Lauren said simply, "Thank you. Thank you for saving my life." And she began sobbing. Dr. Yurt put his hand on her shoulder, comforting her in one of the kindest gestures I've seen from a doctor.

We packed the last of Lauren's things, and then everything was loaded onto a wheelchair as if it were an airport luggage cart. Because Lauren wasn't being wheeled out. She was walking out. I said goodbye to Lauren's nurse. I signed he discharge papers, and then two EMT's (Emergency Medical Technician) came down the hall. They would be talking Lauren to Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, but she would walk out the front door of the Burn Center herself.

And no sooner had the moment come than she raised her arms and said, "That's it. Ninety days to the day, and we're getting out of here." She started walking down the hall, accompanied by one EMT as the other followed . I trailed, pushing the wheelchair, and suddenly tears filled my eyes. Lauren was walking out, leading her entourage (group of people) into the future. She's a recovering patient, a miracle--all embodied in this five-foot-four-inch lady with her pressure garments, yoga outfit and hat.

I turned to Lauren's nurse, gave him a powerful hug and said, "Thank you for everything." He wished us good luck, and I continued down the hall. The physical and occupational therapists were all gathered at the front desk, and Lauren stopped to hug them. Then she walked out the front door, and we followed her. I leaned over to give her a gentle high-five.

Lauren left the hospital the same way she had entered--through the ambulance bay, where on September 11 people had stood in stunned silence as she was unloaded and rolled through the door amide a quiet so complete you could hear the wheels creaking. This time, as she went out the door and into the back of the ambulance, Lauren was waving joyfully to everyone around her and calling out their names.

* * * * *

This is the end of the story . . . but life continues for Lauren, as she works to get back the full use of her hands and body. This is a beautiful example of the power of love, true love. My wish for you all, is to have a special marriage partner, who will love you as much as you love them, and that you will both stand by and support each other in any situation that comes up in your life.

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED IS THE GREATEST JOY ON EARTH!

Love you,

Miss Becky