Of burns and bereavement

When a blogger fails to post for a long time, regular readers may wonder what is happening in real life to cause such silence. I rarely post about family events but on 9th February my mother died, following a long, debilitating struggle with ischaemic dementia which left her unable to move, speak or see. Death is a journey we all face alone and those who watch and share and wait can only wonder and hopefully grow through their own lessons offered during this time.

In my last paid employment, I spent eight years travelling around England training various organisations, including community nurses and army welfare officers, how to cope with loss and bereavement. I learned a great deal from the stories people shared and was able to make suggestions about things to look out for following bereavement.

The first was the lowering of immune health by grief which often causes the first twelve months to be fraught with viral infections and other more serious conditions, especially if a carer has neglected their own health to look after the person during the final period of their life.

The second was a propensity towards accidents and other events caused by a lowering of attention span or inability to be “sensible” or even to process information.

You could say that my gall bladder issues have stemmed from providing support to my parents over the years and neglecting my own health. On Thursday, March 26^th 2015, I managed to burn/scald myself by tipping an overfull pan of boiling bolognaise sauce over my left thigh whilst trying to keep our back door from flying open in the wind. Whilst I was more concerned about losing half the contents of the saucepan, the accident provided a wonderful opportunity to learn about treating burns at home with herbs and other household products.

The general UK advice about treating burns can be found here .  It  says

• Stop the burning process as soon as possible. This may mean removing the person from the area, dousing flames with water or smothering flames with a blanket. Do not put yourself at risk of getting burnt as well.
• Remove any clothing or jewellery near the burnt area of skin. However, don't try to remove anything that is stuck to the burnt skin because this could cause more damage.
• Cool the burn with cool or lukewarm water for 10 to 30 minutes, ideally within 20 minutes of the injury occurring. Never use ice, iced water or any creams or greasy substances such as butter.
• Keep yourself or the person warm. Use a blanket or layers of clothing, but avoid putting them on the injured area. Keeping warm will prevent hypothermia, where a person's body temperature drops below 35ºC (95ºF). This is a risk if you are cooling a large burnt area, particularly in young children and elderly people.
• Cover the burn with cling film. Put the cling film in a layer over the burn, rather than wrapping it around a limb. A clean clear plastic bag can be used for burns on your hand.
• Treat the pain from a burn with paracetamol or ibuprofen. Always check the manufacturer's instructions when using over-the-counter (OTC) medication. Children under 16 years of age should not be given aspirin.

What it doesn’t tell you is anything to aid the cooling or healing process. Nor does it identify first (reddened skin) or second (blisters) degree burns but only tells you when to head for hospital for

• large or deep burns – any burn bigger than the affected person's hand
• full thickness burns of all sizes – these burns cause white or charred skin
• partial thickness burns on the face, hands, arms, feet, legs or genitals – these are burns that cause blisters
• all chemical and electrical burns

Also get medical help straight away if the person with the burn:

• has other injuries that need treating
• is going into shock – signs include cold clammy skin, sweating, rapid shallow breathing and weakness or dizziness
• is pregnant
• is over 60 years of age
• is under five years of age
• has a medical condition such as heart, lung or liver disease, or diabetes
• has a weakened immune system (the body's defence system), for example because of HIV or AIDS, or because they're having chemotherapy for cancer

Although my burn measured the distance from my knee to a hand’s width up my thigh with two blisters measuring 1” by ½”, I decided I preferred to stay at home rather than spend up to four hours in a crowded A&E department.  It’s been a while since I looked at first aid treatments for burns so I was unaware of the advice to cover with clingfilm. I did know the aim was to keep the skin intact if possible to reduce the chance of incurring infection.

After dropping the saucepan I removed my socks and trousers and rushed upstairs to kneel in the bath with my thigh under a running cold tap for as long as I could. I moved, reluctantly, when my toes told me they were developing frost bite. Then I sliced off two large aloe vera leaves from the triffid which sprawls over our upstairs window and lay on the sofa daubing the juice from the centre of the leaf onto the entire area of the burn.

It is amazing how aloe vera removes heat from burns. It is also really important NOT to treat a burn with any oil or salve until ALL the heat has gone. This is because oil traps heat underneath the application.

If you don’t have any aloe vera plants or juice then look to other cooling herbs – elderflower, rose, chamomile, bergamot (preferably wild monada fistulosa). These can be applied as a tea, herbal water or diluted infused herbal vinegar.

After a couple of hours, I used a St John’s wort salve that I had to hand since St John’s wort is specific for healing burns. I covered the burn area with clean cotton fabric (I use a piece of old sheet for most of my first aid treatments!) fastened at each end with micropore tape. I wanted the burn to be open to the air so it didn’t become soggy.

I didn’t take any painkillers because the soreness disappeared after the first night of sleep and the burn itself was only painful thereafter if pressed.

I continued treating with St John’s wort for three days. I was concerned that the blisters were still filled with liquid, so on the fourth day decided to try a honey poultice. I mixed calendula (for skin healing), St John’s wort and yarrow( to reduce any inflammation) oils with a teaspoon of honey (a gift from Cornish herbalist, Nick Jones, last August) and spread it over the wound. When using an oily poultice like this you do need to add a plastic backing unless you want stains all over your clothes!

Two days after applying the honey poultice, all the blisters had dried up and the burned skin area was diminishing. I then made up a salve from calendula, St John’s wort and yarrow and this has been applied twice daily ever since.

It takes at least three weeks for a burn to heal. I’m really pleased with how my burn is progressing.  It itches occasionally which tells me new skin is growing.  I try very hard not to scratch!

Two things I might have done differently would be to have applied a cooling vinegar or flower water after the aloe vera and not applied the salve until before bedtime (around 12 hours after the accident).  Knowing now how effective the honey was, I would have applied the poultice sooner and maybe made two applications (one per day) for two or more days.  If the wound had been worse I could also have applied a marshmallow root poultice to keep the area moisturised.

This summer I am also going to make a burns honey from apothecary’s rose, bergamot and evening primrose flowers. I made a jar several years ago when Kiva Rose Hardin first posted her recipe but no-one suffered with any burns so I ate the honey instead! Kiva Rose recommends the honey for burns where there is a chance of infection. Given how successful ordinary honey is at drawing moisture from a burn blister, I can see how an infused herbal honey would be even better.

Everyone hopes accidents will not happen but if they do, they provide a useful opportunity to learn new skills.

When the river disappears

It’s been a difficult week.

I could blame exhaustion from four weeks preparing for and rushing around the country – two conferences in London and Coventry, followed by presenting four bereavement workshops in Birmingham, Grimsby, Brigg and Goole, a training session on NHS complaints in London then a meeting with my boss in Sheffield. Out of work has been just as busy with three healer teaching/supervision/demonstration sessions, a weekend digging my herb garden in the Cotswolds followed by a family party in Surrey last weekend.

I could also blame my hormones, which were supposed to have settled into their new, lower levels, but my body decided otherwise, leaving me weeping in the toilets yesterday morning wondering if tears were a good enough excuse to go home and sleep for the rest of the day!

At times like these I think back to the lyrics of The Squonk by Genesis http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/g/genesis1632/squonk76811.html
I have always identified with the creature, wondering if one day I shall be the one tied up in the sack leaving only a pool of tears as a legacy!

Thinking rationally, I know how much I have to be grateful for, especially when I hear other people’s stories either first hand or on the news. The recent deaths in Redditch must be touching every parent of an adult child with learning disabilities who wonder if they, too, might find themselves in a similar situation one day if their capacity for caring reaches a place of no return.

One of my tasks this week is to put together a list of support organisations for a young mum who had a stillbirth and is now pregnant again. I was very heartened to see the discussion forums now available online which were not around when my children were born or when my mother suffered her miscarriages. Knowing you are not alone in your suffering and fears is often half the battle.

Being alone was something mentioned by a gentleman I met last night at my local cancer support group. I’d been contacted a week ago by the booked speaker who could not attend because her mother, who suffers with Alzheimers, had fallen and needed 24 hour care until she was back on her feet again.

As a group, we have been wanting to offer healing to people with cancer for many years, but the opportunity hasn’t materialised. It was a wonderful evening. I spoke for fifteen minutes or so and then we broke into groups and everyone who wanted healing was able to receive it. Each healer had four “patients” – around 20 people. Everyone said what a different evening it had been and how much they enjoyed it.

While I was waiting to begin, I dropped into conversation with someone who had been given a 12-month prognosis. He looked very frail, talking about losing his confidence, not being able to work and generally not knowing what to do. There was a flipchart in the corner of the room, so I drew him a picture of the river of life model of loss and bereavement. I first came across this at a Brake training day on understanding bereavement and have been using it in my workshops ever since. People love it because it describes the process so simply and they are able to recognise where they are in relation to the whirlpool of emotions and moving backwards and forwards into the new river of life.

When he saw the diagram, the gentleman mentioned how he had been trying to climb back up the waterfall to regain his original river, which is something many people do before they accept it is not possible. I suggested he try to concentrate on thinking only of one day at a time, or if that were too difficult, just the current hour and forget about the timescale he had been given.

I never know whether the words I offer people are helpful. It only seems important that I say them rather than leaving them unsaid and wishing afterwards I had done so.

Another good thing from last night was meeting some of the Reiki healers who offer regular healing to the group. One of them expressed an interest in herbs, so maybe I shall have another healer at my herb workshops!