In mid-November, at story in the Gaston Gazette from North Carolina covered the long, very painful, but ultimately successful recovery of Lucille Camp. Lucille is a 70-year-old woman who found the inner strength to survive and even modestly recover from third degree burns she suffered across half her body nearly three years ago.
Today, Lucille can stand from her wheelchair to take crutches and, with help from her daughter Sandy Johnson and nurse Judy Tate, slowly walk across a room. Johnson said her mother’s fierce determination has kept her alive and improving since being caught in a house fire in January 2009. When that happened, Lucille was taken to the Wake Forest Burn Center in Winston-Salem, where doctors told the family that she wouldn’t make it through the first 24 hours.
Lucille not only survived, but she has continued to amaze doctors with her small improvements over time. But her recovery has not been steady, and it is very trying not just physically but psychologically. The assistance of workers from Palliative Care Cleveland County, a local group, has been essential to Lucille’s progress.
Palliative care services manage the pain, suffering, and stress of serious injury or illness, and the palliative care team works with a patient’s own doctor to move the patient through the health-care system as the patient needs different treatments from different doctors and facilities
One problem Lucille’s primary physician had was controlling her pain without making Lucille too sleepy or disoriented. The doctor asked the palliative care team to help with symptom management. Another set of eyes can help.”
Lucille’s daughters stay with their mother at night. During the day, nurses from Health and Home Services in Gastonia, NC take turns staying with Lucille. Their brother, Donnie Camp, keeps the house running by making repairs as needed, and Lucille’s husband of 45 years, Claude, provides constant support and encouragement.
When Lucille has a physical problem, the palliative care team is a phone call away and makes a house call if necessary. And though Lucille sometimes doesn’t like the doctor’s orders, she complies after the doctor explains why it’s necessary. For instance, the doctor said at one point that because Lucille had contracted pneumonia, she had to stop eating by mouth until she got stronger, or else risk choking on her food. Lucille had to be fed with an intravenous tube for several weeks, but eventually got back her ability to swallow safely.
“I have an open relationship with Lucille that has helped her to understand that I will not give her things that will make her unsafe,” the doctor says.
Lucille knows that her doctors have helped her get stronger, and be able to live longer than many thought she would three years ago. “I have come a long way since I’ve got my doctor,” Lucille said. “I thank God for all my nurses and my doctors and my family.”
If you or someone you know does suffer a severe burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.