When my daughter, Kaia, was three years old, she and I were severely burned in a scalding water accident from a defective heating system in our home. We lived in the Boston area and so she was rushed to the Shriners Burn Institute. I was taken to Mass. General and treated briefly. They prepared a room for me, but I didn’t want to stay. I could not imagine being separated from my daughter at that critical time. A doctor escorted me through a tunnel to the Shriners Hospital, speaking about the importance of following the program he had outlined for me to use. I thanked him and rushed to my child’s bedside.
On the day we were burned, New Year’s Day 1984, after hearing Kaia’s diagnosis, I discharged myself from Massachusetts General Hospital against my doctor’s wishes. I then received a detailed consultation from a friend who was an acupuncturist, western herbalist, and had studied Ayurveda in India for three years.
The first thing he told me was to be sure to do everything the doctors at Shriner’s Hospital suggested, exactly as they advised. He spoke to me about incorporating several complimentary practices and therapies into our healing program:
- Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs for pain reduction
- Prevention of any stress is crucial
- Drink plenty of water
- Eat a lot of protein, more than usual
- Eat foods very high in minerals, preferably cooked
- Eat root vegetables abundantly
- Eat plenty of dark leafy green vegetables: kale, collards, chard, watercress, beet greens, spinach, arugula, mustards, etc
- Cook very soft, watery, light colored foods; long, slow cooking is best
- Eat lots of sea vegetables, loaded with minerals, trace minerals, detoxifying and immune enhancing micro-nutients, and the essential building blocks now referred to as ‘essential sugars’
- Drink herbal teas, especially with roots and leaves high in minerals, nervines and nutrients for the nervous system
- Light and Sound therapy
- Color therapy in relation to clothing, food and our surroundings
- St. John’s wort infused oil applied onto the skin, after release from the hospital, to support nerve damage repair
The nurses, doctors and hospital attendants at the Shriners Burn Institute were, and are, in a class by themselves. Each interaction with her healthcare workers felt gentle, comforting and completely honoring, even with my alternative ways of looking at wellness and healing. Upon arriving, they treated and evaluated Kaia’s needs. She was diagnosed with approximately 20% of her body exhibiting second degree, borderline third degree burns. With that much area having absolutely no skin, she could easily contract infections, so she was quarantined for about 48 hours. They told me that she would need to spend approximately four months in the hospital and would undergo two to three skin grafts. Follow-up visits would be twice weekly for about six months and then once weekly for a year and a half or more.
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My daughter and I already practiced a very strict wholesome foods diet. In fact, Kaia had only eaten sugar once in her life before our accident, a month earlier (and against my wishes) on her third birthday. I was careful to see to it that we would eat plenty of high quality protein, plenty of sea vegetables, roots and dark leafy greens each and every day. I immediately began to prepare very soft, slow-cooked, soothing whole grains and healing foods.
I knew what I craved each day, and it seemed that that’s exactly what Kaia wanted, too! Soft brown rice gruel, millet, whole oats or barley were served with lots of Chinese cabbage, kale, sea vegetables and white beans or tofu. The white beans were cooked over low heat for more than twelve hours, and tofu was steamed with just a hint of tamari (real cultured soy sauce).
Kaia had an amazing appetite as she began her recovery. I heard that many of the children there at the hospital rejected food, so they needed to be force fed to get enough calories and protein into their bodies to help heal the damage from their burns.
Kaia ate three fairly large bowls of organic, nutritious foods for each of her three meals daily. That was nine bowls of food every day to give her the building blocks to help with her repair! And we certainly didn’t need to force feed her! She ate willingly, chewing well, and enjoying every bite. Each day, she would have a comment about her meal, “Mom, how did you know I was craving millet and onions!” or “This is the best meal I ever tasted!”
The hospital staff was astounded by her appetite. They watched in amazement as she asked for seconds and thirds. A couple times, she even ate a fourth helping, as her healing process shifted into high gear. The entire staff was completely supportive of our strange foods and unconventional ways. It made a very traumatic experience much less difficult to go through.
I found color therapy very important. I wore only white or very light colored clothing. Any dark colors bothered me, and I observed that just looking at dark clothes or dark or bright colors, especially red, in my surroundings felt like it undid a little bit of my healing process. The foods that we ate were mostly white or very light in color, except those very high mineral foods, like kale, Swiss chard and sea vegetables.
Sound also had quite an impact. Very soft, soothing sounds and music felt very healing, but any loud or sharp sound, such as that of people arguing, talk radio, even the news and weather, or louder rock and roll music seemed to slow or stop the healing of our damaged skin tissue. Reading aloud, and being read to, felt especially soothing and healing for both of us.
Prevention of any stress is truly crucial for the healing process to thrive. This was certainly obvious to my body, as I felt pain anytime I felt any physical or emotional stress whatsoever. But when I was stress-free, there was little or no pain. I could notice that over a few day’s time, it was more obvious.
All of the other foods and herbs helped our process, as well. We drank Chinese herb teas with powerful aromas and flavors for the initial pain, switching to various western herbal teas that he suggested for helping to repair the damaged nerves, and for nourishment and enjoyment. We both drank plenty of water every day. Kaia asked several times a day for her glass to be refilled. This also surprised the hospital staff.
On the morning of the eighth day that Kaia was hospitalized, a miracle occurred. I got a call from her doctor explaining to me that they consider Kaia to be an absolute wonder, and that she had healed in eight days more than they had expected in four months, without the need for the two to three skin grafts! He then asked if I would please pick her up as soon as I was able, because they had a little girl being air lifted from Chicago with severe burns who would need Kaia’s bed. I picked her up in the early afternoon, drove to my friend’s house, and entered the next phase of recovery.
Although I continued to use the topical medicines for burns as instructed by her doctor, I added the next ‘alternative therapy’ as well. What happened when we used Herb Pharm’s organic St. John’s wort infused oil was a true and potent miracle. My friend, Beti, and I applied the beautiful bright red oil onto her skin every two hours to support her nerve repair. We would take turns getting up in the night so that we could keep to the two-hour schedule. It seemed that every time we applied the St. John’s wort oil, we could observe a noticeable improvement! “Was this possible?” we wondered.
On the thirteenth day after our terrible accident, we went back to the hospital for our first follow-up visit. The doctor asked me where the child was that had been burned. I pointed to Kaia, but he spoke to me as if I might have brought the wrong child, or something!
You see, there were no markings whatsoever on Kaia’s skin! It was soft and pink and perfect! He looked in her chart at the large photographs of her very significant burns from just less than two weeks ago. Then he looked at Kaia again. In a stern voice, he asked me what was going on.
Kaia immediately looked him in the eye, asked if he was a ‘burn doctor’ too, and began to tell him a story about something that had happened to her while she was in the hospital. His jaw dropped. You could have knocked him over with a feather! We stood in silence for several moments.
Then he asked me what we did, and as I began to speak, he asked if he could go find a colleague or two so that they could also hear our story. A few minutes later, he returned with two other doctors, one that had been a burn specialist for more than twenty years. They asked me dozens of questions as they wrote pages of detailed notes about every alternative measure that we had taken. They were absolutely wonderful about my miraculous daughter’s recovery, and told me that we would not be required to come for any more follow-up visits.
It was at that moment that a fire began to burn in my belly. I announced, mostly to myself, that from that day forward, I would be an herbalist for the rest of my life. And so it is.
Remember: The immediate action to take for a burn of virtually any size is to submerge it in cool or cold water. Do not apply ice, butter or oil and if a burn is anything more than a very small, superficial one, seek medical attention right away. Burns can be quite serious. Remember, it’s preferred that you don’t even hold a new burn under fast running water. When a burn is soaked in cool water, the heat is released and the water will warm within minutes. Change the water as often as needed until medical attention is available. Pure aloe vera or lavender essential oil may be applied after soaking in cold water for superficial burns.