These are the photos from my husband’s initial burn care.  Some are hard to look at although the worst have not been included.  So you may not wish to look at this post.

This is a photo I took the morning of Sunday, February 4.  I was in awe of the sun rays in the fog on the nearby hill.

And this is a video of Tom taking out washed eggs to sell Monday morning at 10:22.

We were pruning black knot off of our plum trees in the orchard.  I finally agreed to take out one tree entirely and significantly prune others to try to reduce this disease of stone fruit trees.  I am trying to keep it from spreading to our peach tree.  And my understanding is that you are supposed to burn the diseased wood in an attempt to eradicate the disease.  So Tom was starting a bonfire to burn the one tree and the other branches. I was pruning our golden egg plum at the back of the orchard when I heard what sounded like a bomb and saw a huge fire ball in the air.  It must have been huge for me to see it above the trees surrounding me.  I quickly heard Tom’s screaming.  I ran as fast as I could toward him and noticed his shirt was on fire.  I was trying to tell him to drop and roll, but he quickly removed the burning shirt.  We got the hose water running and sprayed him down.  He asked me to take his knife and phone from his pant pockets.  He seemed shaky, and I thought he might fall down.  I called 911 while trying to get him to sit down.  He was vomiting and coughing black stuff up and having trouble breathing.  My call went out at 11:36.  At 11:47 the first responder ran onto our property, and at 11:49 they were walking Tom out to the ambulance to take him to Skagit Vally Hospital.  They had determined that Airlift wasn’t available to land at our place so they brought him to the ED.

He did have an IV placed and pain medications started on the trip there.  In the ED they intubated him. His vocal cords were already swollen when they did this.  Here he is at Skagit.

Then he was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center.  The airlift crew were quite nice to me.  There was a surgical nurse in the ED that was really nice to me as well. Unfortunately I do not remember their names.

Here he is in the Harbowview ED after I arrived.  He was well sedated and appeared comfortable.  One of the burn team came down, and they transported him to the Burn ICU.  They debrided his burns while my father and I were in their waiting room.  They had performed bronchoscopy which showed mild burn damage to his airways.

Here he is at 6 PM when we finally got to see him again.

I did notice the view from his 9th floor window.

I noticed how they struggled to fit his last name on their card.

I noticed all of his drips including propofol and fentanyl.

And this is him at 9:00 PM when visiting hours are over.

Tuesday morning at 9:00 (when visiting hours start again) he was stable but swelling more (as expected).

They were getting ready to remove his dressings for wound rounds where the entire burn team assesses his injuries and prepares a plan.

I kept watching the views.

An occupational therapist came in, talking about how important elevating the hand and arm were for his recovery.  They hung his right hand up but even with all of his sedation, it was clear he did not like this.

They said that he had two full thickness burns, on his inner upper arm and the bridge of his nose.  There was a good chance that these would heal without needing grafts.

His breathing tube was removed in the afternoon.  And there was a sunset behind Smith Tower that made Tom quite emotional.

And here he is without the endotracheal (breathing) tube, but he still has a nasogastric tube and a urinary catheter.  He passed his swallowing evaluation and was able to start drinking and eating soft bites of foods.

Our farm sitter had found his glasses at home and sent a photo.  We realized that his glasses probably saved his vision.  He did have corneal abrasions on both eyes but nothing worse.

This is Nguyen, our amazing burn unit nurse.  Skylar had been his amazing night shift nurse the night before.

By Wednesday afternoon his nasogastric tube was removed, and he was sitting up in a chair.

Later that after he went for his first walk with another incredible burn ICU nurse Amy.

We walked to a window where you could look back at his ICU room’s windows.

There was an incredible sunset over Smith tower again.

His urinary catheter was removed, and he was able to leave the ICU to go to the burn unit on the 8th floor.  Here he is walking out of the ICU with Amy.

I was staying with my father and fighting morning traffic to get to the burn unit each morning at 9:00.  I was behind this Seahawks fan car Thursday morning.

For Thursday’s wound care. Tom used oxycodone and nitrous which seemed to help.  The swelling was improving, and the full thickness burns were looking better.  Laurel and Paula were our amazing nurses that day.  Reuben was his great night nurses for a couple of days.

And Tom was starting to look more like Tom again.

We kept walking around, and I noticed a J.P. Patches in an office window nearby.

Tom’s parents had driven up from Arizona to see Tom with the help of his brother David.  They arrived that afternoon, and I took some time to do some testing before a class I had to attend on Monday.  It was a struggle to concentrate on it.

At this time, I received DNA results for Steve that I had submitted a couple weeks before.  It was a nice relief from the worrying.

One doctor had mentioned that Tom might be able to go home the next day.  I realized that I needed to switch cars to get Tom home comfortably.  So I went home that night and said hi to the dogs.

I did some quick chores at home, grabbed some stuff, switched cars and headed back early the next morning.  The dressing change was with another amazing nurse Bella. She taught me to do it, and I performed about half of the care.  Tom did not need the nitrous this time and tolerated it well with just the oxycodone.

One thing I brought back was an old pair of glasses he had so he could see again.  He was able to use his phone better which was really nice.

While we were in the ICU we watched a lot of helicopters land and take off.  From this view you can barely see the pad they were using.

As we walked around, we went to the nearby skybridge and could see Mount Rainier.

Friday was National Pizza day.  Harborview’s telephones had stopped working the day before, and they were problem with their food service and Tom’s dinner the night before was almost 3 hours late.  So we decided to have pizza delivered from Razzis ( including dairy free/gluten free pizza).  That worked out quite well.

Saturday was a pretty day.  The word on the ward is that we would be discharged that afternoon if all went well with the last wound care session, and we were comfortable with doing it ourselves.  It was a pretty day.

The dressing change went well with amazing Aaliyah coaching, we were given lots of supplies, and Tom was discharged.  Here is his now empty bed.

We got him home, watching Svengolie in his favorite chair.

Now the work really begins.  We really appreciate everyone who visited Tom in the hospital and who helped with tasks at home.  All of this was tremendously helpful.