Boy Hyde and Man Hyde

Boy hyde is something we're born with.  Everybody is born with it, whether you are a girl or boy.  Boy hyde comes off easily, especially if you wreck your bike or run fast and skin your knees all up.  We had sort of an unspoken rule in our family about boy hyde, you really couldn't cry whenever it came off because what was going to grow back in its place was MAN hyde.  Tough man hyde.  This was the real stuff you wanted on your body.  It was rugged and durable.  It must have been true because all of my older wiser cousins already knew all this and my Daddy said so.  It would be a few years later when I would stop believing everything he said.  So - when this boy hyde falls off its pretty much an honor.  We always wanted the boy hyde off.  It was weak and wimpy and undesirable. Any time we fell and bled as kids my Dad would say  "Don't cry - you don't want all that sissy boy hyde on there, now the man hyde is gonna grow back. " Oh OK- and then magically it would quit hurting and we'd quit crying and start watching for the man hyde to grow. Sure enough when a few hours later a tough scab was in the place of where that sissy boy hyde was. Scabs were the first step to getting some man hyde.   Now, either I was just a dumber kid than Paige or my delivery of this story is not as good as my Dad's.  Paige fell down the hill one summer at Lake Greason and I tried to tell her about this magical boy hyde and man hyde.  She wasn't going for it.  She cried for about an hour and limped for 2 days.  The boy hyde story may die with her. 


Your skin serves 2 major purposes.  1. It is the body's first line of defense against disease.  Its the barrier that keeps bugs out.  2. It helps to maintain the perfect body temperature of 98.6.  If you don't have skin, you don't have any thing to keep infection out and you can't maintain a level temp.  Temperature control is now hard because your body tries to raise the temp so you won't freeze to death.  The last couple of days the CEA (cultured epithelial autograft) or Yankee skin must get some air to it and dry out for a bit.  All of the dressings are cut down and Heath is put in a sheet tent and then he has hot air blow up his hind end.  The hot air is to help him with temperature control.  He gets cold very easily. The air sometimes can be painful if its blown directly onto the wounds.  This process will last a few more days and then they will put his Michelin Man outfit on him again.  We as a family, have not seen the full extent of the burns since day one.  They have been covered with dressings and not visible to anyone except for the doctors and nurses when they do dressing changes or his daily scrub down (aka HYDRO).  Seeing his face is a little deceiving to people.  His face was burned, but not severely.  He face is pretty much healed up but it  sure doesn't look like the rest of his body.  Burns are just vicious.  Full body burns are just mean.  It looks like he was just licked by flames yesterday. Redness covers the body and you can still feel the heat.   I am not sure how someone can go through this.  No wonder it must take so long to heal.  There is so much to heal.  This is what misery looks like.  This is what suffering looks like. Although my imagination had dreamed something far worse than what I was looking at, it still makes my heart skip a beat.  I realize how very close he was to death.  He was consumed with fire, except for his neck, groin and feet. The entire body.  The whole entire body.  The whole entire body burned.  Every time I think of it, I cringe, my heart hurts, and I get mad.   36 days have brought about much healing, but I see there are many more to go.  The creeping days are the ones where nothing really changes that you can see.  Seeing the full extent of those burns made my admiration for Heath just that much more.  When you can see the big picture, you can appreciate things for what they are.  This was a deliverance from evil, a walk through the valley of the shadow of death.   And I haven't missed a day thanking God for keeping Heath here.  As I looked at his body in amazement of all he had been through, all I could think of was - all the man hyde is off now Heath, but what is going to take it's place is much tougher and better than man hyde. 

'Til Tomorrow.