Glynn Williams

ONE DAY at a TIME

I am a cancer survivor. In late 1995 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and was put on chemotherapy, which I ceased to take after a month, due to nerve deterioration due to the drugs, opting instead to take alternative treatments and yoga, as well as yoga breathing techniques to fight the cancer. I agreed to go for regular doctor examinations and blood work, and if the cancer got worse, I would go back on chemotherapy. The cancer got better, and disappeared. I was cleared of cancer in 1996.

In May of 2001 I was working as a cook in our family restaurant, when I was carrying a reservoir of 450 degree hot deep fryer oil to filter it. My foot slipped on a patch of oil on the floor, and the oil went up in the air and the oil from the reservoir came down on me. The oil hit me from the head down, instantly doing the damage to my skin, causing searing hot pain. I scrambled to my feet, screaming in pain. I rushed to the deep sinks, getting myself up off the oil on the floor. Some of the people in the restaurant, including our waitress, came back to help. My brother, who had just finished his paramedic training, was working next door and came over. He helped me into the sink, and started spraying me with water. My skin was coming off as I was sprayed.

The hospital on the island where I live wouldn’t have been able to wash the oil off and cool my burns, so this helped a lot. The ambulance was called, but somehow was told after that they didn’t need to come. So I stayed in the sink, being sprayed. Then the ambulance came, and I was put on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. The doctor had the nurse apply flamazine to my burns, and I was wrapped up. Then I was given morphine. The hospital called for me to be air lifted to Vancouver, and I was taken by helicopter to the Port Hardy airport, and went by jet to the VGH. The last thing I remembered was being given morphine before the jet took off.

About a week later I woke up in my hospital bed. I had suffered 3rd and some 2nd degree burns to 30% of my body. I had also been tested for cancer, as they thought it might have come back and caused me to become weakened, causing me to have my accident. The doctors had given me an escharotomy on my right arm from my shoulder to my hand, slicing around my muscles to relieve pressure. My head, face, neck, arm, both hands, torso, a patch on my back, and tops of both feet had been burned, requiring grafting to chest, arm, hand, side of torso, a patch on my back, and tops of both feet, with the skin harvested from both my legs.

I would go through fever and chills, being covered up with flannel, or having a fan pointed at me. My forehead had no skin left on it, and the doctors wanted to graft it, but put compresses on it each day to debride the dead skin. The area started to produce buds of skin on it. The nurses applied bactroban and neocortif to prevent bacteria from growing on the area. My face was shaved each day to remove the dead skin, and started to heal up, my lips and face were very swollen. My scalp became infected, and I had to be shaved, and scraped each day, with antibacterials applied to it. My escharotomy and hands were cleaned each day with saline solution, necessitating a double dose of morphine for 10 out of 10 pain level. I was not able to use my hands at all after the burns, until my left hand healed enough that they took off the hard dead skin to reveal pink skin underneath.

Until I had the use of my left hand, I was not able to feed myself, and had to be fed by family members or the nurse. I developed an MRSA infection in the hospital as well. After enough healing had taken place, I was showered and the dead skin left behind afterwards was picked off me. My legs were wrapped in pressure bandages, and I was helped up, to try to walk. My legs were extremely weak after a month in bed. I walked with assistance each day, and was put on an exercise bike in the physio room. Also, I attempted to do some yoga exercises, of which I had lost most of my flexibility due to the burns. I was discharged from the hospital and taken to the Leslie Peterson WCB building in Richmond, where I was given regular physiotherapy, stretching my scars, and exercising, doing yoga, weight lifting, using the machines, and such, each day. I was also fitted for Jobst garments.

For the first while, I was ravenously hungry, having lost about 20 pounds. After a long stay there, I went to stay with family in Nanaimo, attending Summit rehab there, continuing my exercising and advanced yoga. The yoga helped greatly in helping me regain almost all my range of motion. When the rehab there determined that I had progressed as far as I could, I was sent home and attempted to go back to work. However, my skin still could not tolerate heat, and I had to go back on WCB. Then I started working again.

I started using scar massage oil that I had found out about, camphorated oils, which helped much with the scar healing. The scar massage oil formula was from Edgar Cayce, which I had joined the A.R.E organization, and then read about the scar massage oil, which I made myself. It kept the circulation to the scars, helping them a lot, and reducing my scarring. I think anyone who has had burn injuries should do yoga, as it helped me more than the physio that was prescribed for me.

By: Glynn Williams

Glynn	Visiting the Pyramids
Sunset Cruise

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