![]() ![]() Once I was discharged from this hospital, I continued outpatient Physical, Occupational, and Speech therapy three days a week, one hour per session, for the next eighteen months. I had to work on balance, walking up and down stairs, grasping and holding things with my hands and fingers, stretching my mouth, and learning how to speak clearly. Once I was discharged from this hospital, I was transferred to UC Irvine Medical Center, for another week for medicated bandage changes, which my parents did, and then I spent two more weeks at Healthbridge for inpatient, intensive Physical, Occupational, and Speech therapy. Before I even left this first hospital, I had a total of nine, eight-hour surgeries, and at least 30 bandage changes. At this point, I was having skin grafting surgeries every other day, and bandage changes each day in between. There are no words to describe the agony. Eventually I had to start walking again, and I screamed and cried in pain. Just sitting up was exhausting and painful, but I still had to scoot, painstakingly and painfully to the edge of the bed, and somehow stand up. I can’t describe the pain of having to move not only sore, severely atrophied muscles, but also the skin, that was so tight. Even so, it was important not to let my muscles continue to atrophy, so each day, the Physical Therapist and her assistant came in to make me stand, and eventually walk again. I was unable to eat or drink for several more weeks, and was fed through an NG tube in my nose, and an IV line. When my lungs were finally strong enough to breathe on my own, they allowed me to wake up, but I was heavily medicated on hallucinogenic drugs like ketamine, to help manage the pain. In between surgeries, I was wrapped from head to feet in bandages. They also began full depth skin grafts while I was in a coma, which is a process where they took donor skin from my back, thighs, calves, stomach, and scalp, placed it on a stretching machine, and applied it to the burned areas to cover the burned skin. During the second infection, my fever reached dangerous levels, and I was placed on a special ice bed. They had to use my ventilator to disrupt my breathing, and pound my chest and lungs from the inside, and I ended up on a Rotabed, a crazy, tilted, rotating bed, for a week. The pneumonia was aggressive, and resistant to treatment because I was inactive. I was kept in a coma for about eight weeks, during which time I caught pneumonia, and another infectious disease. I sustained full depth, second and third degree burns to approximately 60% of my body, including my face, chest, shoulder, stomach, hands, arms, and shins. My injuries were so extensive, that I was put into a medically induced coma, and intubated. I was rushed by ambulance to the nearest hospital, and then life-flighted to the nearest burn intensive care unit in Fresno, California. I panicked, and started running, but thankfully someone had the presence of mind to wrap me in a blanket and tackle me to the ground. It caused the fire to explode, and I immediately caught on fire. ![]() When I was twelve years old, I was camping with my dad, and accidentally poured gasoline instead of lighter fluid on a campfire. I turned fifteen years old on Saturday, November 26, 2016. Camp leaders say donations greatly support the program.My name is Joshua Keeney. And those are the people you should be hanging out with," Rodriguez said. "There are some mean people in this world that will judge you, but there are also some kind people in this world that will take you in and be friends with you. Today, he's 16. They both say they plan to come back on staff as counselors and inspire campers to be comfortable in their own skin. That I can do things that I never thought I could," said Chris Etienne of Providence, Rhode Island.Įtienne has been coming to camp since he was eight years old. ![]() "It's taught me that I can test my limits. Lupinacci's staff is made up of first responders, medical professionals and adult burn survivors who volunteer their time to give kids a memorable summer. More teens charged in connection to guns stolen from Shelton homeĬamp Director Steve Lupinacci was a firefighter in Stratford for 26 years before retiring in 2013. ![]()
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