The Reason

Author: Tony Trott

I feel compelled to explain to you why we were not able to publish a Newsletter in April 2021. I was, kind of, incapacitated. I burned myself with boiling water while cooking and I ended up having skin graft surgery at the Burn Center at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. The medical staff kept me as an inpatient longer than many burn patients because of my disability; they wanted me to be as functional as possible when I went home. I was admitted on March 25, my surgery was March 26, and I was discharged from the hospital on April 2. So, I was not in any shape to do my share of the work involved in publication of the Newsletter.

I am still recovering, but I am at home and doing better each day. It will likely take a month or two for everything to be completely back to the way it was before the burn, but things are healing well; it will just take some time.

This was my first time as an inpatient at a hospital, unless you count when I was born, and it gave me some time to think about how there are so many different people involved in caring for people in the hospital. I’m not even going to try to list all of them, as I’m sure I would forget one and that would make me feel terrible. I didn’t like being there, but the medical care was top-notch.

Many people overlook that besides the medically-trained individuals, there are also important non-medical personnel who make hospital stays more bearable. This includes, but is not limited to, the cafeteria and food staff, the people that come to clean the room with a smile and say hello, and the like. All of the people, in my experience, were extremely kind and understanding. While my 8-night stay in the Washington Hospital Center wasn’t fun, the people there definitely made it more bearable for me.

The bottom line is, if you or a loved one find yourself in a hospital, it is easy to get caught up in how angry you are to be there and how uncomfortable you are. But don’t forget that there are so many people doing their best around you to make the experience as painless as possible. I certainly won’t forget it and the pain will never leave my mind, but I will remember the nice people who made it bearable.