These were my thoughts when I started running the water in the bathtub. I made it as hot as it would go because I'd probably let it sit for awhile before I was ready to give baths. The steam rose up out of the tub--it was very, very hot. Looking down, I suddenly realized that I still had on my watch. It would be ruined if I didn't take it off. Getting up and moving toward the door, I told Diane, who was eight years old, to be sure 17-month-old Melanie didn't go near the tub. Melanie was in the livingroom, toddling about in her diaper and rubber pants. Diane moved toward the bathroom door and I walked a few yards across the hall to lay my watch down on my bedroom dresser.
As I laid down my watch, I heard a blood-curdling scream coming from the bathroom. Racing into the steamy bathroom, I saw Melanie in the bathtub, directly under the faucett, water hitting her on the knees and her little hands curled up in front of her. I snatched her out of the water and saw that the skin on her hands and legs looked like cooked onion. "Go get Daddy!" I yelled to Diane, as I turned off the water in the tub and held Melanie to me. She was crying. I didn't know what to do with her except to hold her to me. I knew she was terribly burned. I also felt nauseated looking at her skin. It was starting to come off on my clothes.
My husband, Don, raced into the bathroom and took her into the kitchen. He had been a medic in the army and would know exactly what to do for her. He reached for the Oleo and quickly applied it all over her body. Wrapping her in a blanket, we rushed off to the hospital. The neighbor rushed in the door and herded the children out to her house.
When we got to the hospital, we rushed into the Emergency Department. A doctor immediately came out. He spoke a few words with my husband, snatched Melanie from him and ran into a treatment room behind some double doors. We were not allowed to follow. Don tearfully told me that the doctor had told him that putting Oleo on burns was the worst thing a person could do to burns. He felt just terrible. The doctor was having to wash all that margarine off Melanie's cooked-onion skin. As we sat there we began to hear her moan and cry in the other room: foreign sounding, unearthly wails. It was the most horrible experience I have ever had: to know she was in pain and be unable to comfort her or do anything about it. Don and I clung to each other, waiting, helpless. I told him what had happened and we felt just awful that this had happened.
When we were finally able to see her, Melanie was swathed in bandages over her whole body from the neck down. There was an opening in the bandages so she could go to the bathroom. She looked dazed and didn't really make eye contact with us. I talked to her and she hardly responded. The doctor said she had second degree burns over a large percentage of her body--I don't remember how much. He was very concerned about her so I knew it was serious. Don was devastated. But we decided that I'd stay the night in the hospital so Melanie wouldn't be as frightened. Don would pick up the two older children and go home.
I didn't sleep much that night. I was worried sick and didn't know what to do for Melanie. I tried to talk to her and entertain her, but she had withdrawn and wouldn't engage with me. She seemed dazed. Just dazed. She was in a crib with bars over the top so she couldn't climb out. But that would have been impossible because she couldn't really move with all those bandages on her. I couldn't get comfortable in the chair I had to sleep in. Being pregnant made it all the more difficult and I was exhausted by the next morning.
Don came the next day after he dropped the children off at a church member's house. Melanie looked a little bit better, but I was still very upset about her. Seeing how tired I was, Don asked the doctor to please give me some medication to help me sleep. I took a pill called Darvon or Darvocett or some sleeping pill that started with a D, once I got home. I slept quite well that day. But I was still quite upset when I got up. Actually, I felt kind of crampy when I woke up. When I went into the bathroom, I miscarried. It must have been the pill the doctor gave me.
I really wanted to have that baby and was terribly distraught, particularly when I could be losing my other baby, too.
When I went back to the hospital to see Melanie, she was awake and looking around. The doctor came through to take her down to have the dead skin removed, which was done daily in a huge tank of water, and he told me that Melanie sang during the whole procedure. Her little face would screw up and she'd look like she wanted to cry, but she'd sing:
When He cometh,
When He cometh
to take up His jewels.
All His jewels, Precious jewels,
His loved and His own.
Like the stars of the morning,
His bright crown adorning;
They shall shine in their beauty,
Bright gems for His crown.
I was so proud to know that Melanie was such a good girl. The doctor was impressed with her and I could tell that He admired our family and how we've raised our children. We taught the children to sing when our family worshipped together every weekend. Maybe I had done something right with my children. I didn't know how to be a parent because my own parents were not exactly the model of care for us and I grew up without getting the emotional things I needed. So how to run a household, attend to my children's emotional and physical needs, and not know how it should look, has always been a challenge for me.
Melanie looked exhausted and ashen when she got back from her treatment, but she had new bandages on and at least she was making eye contact with me. It wasn't long before she was singing her song for me, too. I was thrilled and so proud of her.
Melanie sang for the nurses and doctors, and I'd sing with her while she lay in her hospital crib. She started being more responsive, although she acted really dazed and withdrawn. I hoped that she would snap out of it soon.
One day, the pastor came to visit us and Melanie stood up in her crib and sang her song for him. He left with tears in his eyes. A little bit later he came back to see us with some surprising news. Scotty, a man who had once attended our church, was a patient across the hall from Melanie's room. Scotty had quit going to church because he had become embittered about something or another. People knew him to be an opinionated, miserable man. The pastor told us that Scotty had been admitted to the pediatric unit a couple nights earlier after an emergency hernia operation. No other beds had been available in the hospital, much to his disgust. But several times in the night he would hear Melanie singing. Her sweet little voice in the darkness of the night broke through the bitterness of his heart. When the pastor had visited him out of a sense of duty that morning, Scotty told him all about hearing Melanie singing at 2:00 in the morning, and how this had affected him. As he lay in his bed, he considered that he needed God in his life once again. He had reconsecrated himself to God. The pastor was teary as he told me this. I thought of the verse in Psalm 8: "Out of the mouth of babes He hath ordained strength."
I wondered if this event signaled something bigger, more important for Melanie's little life. Maybe she would be a singer when she grew up. Maybe God would use her for something important. She was getting better and could come home soon. I was thrilled that she would be okay.
And so I took my little baby girl home several days later. John, who was 5 years old, became very protective of his baby sister, always watching her and playing with her. He knew that she had nearly died and wanted to take care of her. They were very cute together. Melanie remained dazed and withdrawn for about six months. I just hoped that it would go away soon. And it did, eventually.
It seems that this all could have happened for a higher purpose: Scotty was given the opportunity to rededicate himself to God. And God had shown me that Melanie had been spared because God would do something important in her life.
I am so fortunate.
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