Goodness Unveiled

As with many stories, ministries, or blogs, the idea to start Goodness Unveiled came from a time of hardship in our lives. It came from a place of pain, where God met us and showed us His goodness and His faithfulness even in the midst of great trial. His goodness has always been true, but it was unveiled to us in a much deeper way through these years I am about to share with you.

To share our story is to remember God’s goodness in our lives and to share them with others. Psalm 105:1-5 says, “Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered.” As we share our story, I pray that God uses it to show His goodness and faithfulness in your life. His character is unchanging and trustworthy, no matter what the circumstance. We hope that you will share your story of God’s goodness as well.

I have homeschooled our kids since our oldest, Garren, was in 4^th grade. In the homeschooling community, it is common for people to share knowledge, teach each other’s kids certain subjects, whether it’s music, foreign languages, art, etc. For Garren’s freshman year another mom was offering Latin classes in her home with other kids Garren’s age. Several were friends of his, so we signed him up. Through his freshman and sophomore year he took Latin, Spanish, Life Skills, Personal Finance, and Chemistry from her. On the morning of June 16, 2020, I took Garren to his class on my way to take the girls to my sister’s house to swim with cousins. About an hour later, I see his name pop up on my phone. It was his teacher calling from his phone and she told me there had been an accident, and that he had gotten burned. I had no idea they were doing any experiments, and no permission slips were sent home. She was very calm, so I assumed it was a small kitchen experiment and maybe something splashed on his arm. I remember asking her if he was ok and if I needed to come get him. She very nonchalantly told me that maybe I should come get him.

I left the girls with my sister and headed across town, about a 15-minute drive. I called my dad who is a retired flight medic to see what this could mean; he told me that burns are unpredictable and to take him to the hospital. With COVID restrictions he couldn’t go in, so he would call his LifeStar buddies to check on us. I called Jonathan to take the other two boys to my sister so he could meet me at the hospital.

When I got to the house he was at, I walked in the front door and the teacher was standing at the patio door crying, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”. It was then I realized this was not something small. It was that point that everything around me went dark and the only thing I saw when I walked outside was Garren sitting on a chair shaking violently with blue lips. He had wet towels covering his left arm and both legs. I picked the wet towel up off of his arm and his skin was melting off. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t been taken to a hospital, and I just said over and over, “He has to go to the hospital, we have to go.” The husband was an ER doctor in a nearby town and said that he would help get him to the car and meet me at the hospital, but I never saw him again. I helped Garren limp out to the car with extremely burned legs and a sprained ankle. When we got in the car, even in the 100-degree heat, he was so cold I had to turn off all the air.  Later I would find out that cold wet towels on burns actually can put someone into hypothermic shock. A burn blanket and cutting off his shorts would have been the first way to handle it, and then calling an ambulance for proper care and pain management. Later we would realize that the worst of the burns were where they did not cut his shorts off at the house, something that should have been basic first aid for an ER doctor.

I got him to the hospital, and they got him in the showers because we weren’t sure what burned him, and they tried to get his pain and shock under control. They explained that it looked to be second-degree on about 18% of his body and that third-degree burns kill all the nerves, so second-degree burns are the most painful thing a person can endure. They said we should expect one day in the Burn Unit for every percent he was burned. After conversations with them and suggestions from my dad on the phone, they were able to change up his pain medicine combination and after about 2 hours he finally had some pain relief. My sister, also a flight medic, was able to get to Amarillo in time to ride with him in the ambulance to the Burn Unit. She kept him calm and made sure he was ok the whole drive there. We got him into the ER at UMC in Lubbock and had trouble with his blood pressure, so he was only allowed so much pain medicine. By the time we got to burn ICU, I had to prepare to head back to Amarillo and switch out cars, get necessities for a possible 3 week stay, and situate our other 4 kids.

I can’t really explain how it felt to leave my child on the worst day of his life. While I was driving back to Amarillo later that night, they took him into debridement. For those who don’t know, debridement is where they scrape off all the burned and dead skin. Burn victims are awake for this process, and they put them in what they call ‘the tank’, which is soundproof room. When he came out, the nurse told Jonathan that Garren was one of the toughest kids he had ever seen. As he was wheeled out, he gave Dad a thumbs up. He ended up being burned on 14.5% of his body, both legs and his left arm.

It was during my drive back to Amarillo that night that the song Goodness of God came up on my Amazon Music playlist, and then I had it on repeat the whole week of being in the burn unit. I played it as I stayed in the hospital with him, lying awake at night praying over him. It was a regular reminder that God was good and always faithful, even in the fire. It became what I leaned on in the hardest of times throughout those weeks.

We spent one week in the burn unit, two weeks less than expected. Garren was insistent that he was going to go home before his 16^th birthday, which was 10 days after he got burned. During the time in the burn unit, he showed such strength and love for others. Despite the pain and trauma he was enduring, he told us more than once that he was glad it was him and not his friends. His physical therapist in the Burn Unit was a member of a local Star Wars cosplay organization and he had a great time talking with her about Star Wars, which helped keep his mind off of the pain and hard physical therapy sessions. We had sweet visitors that we didn’t even know come in and pray over him, which helped us put one step in front of the other. Our time in the burn unit was so incredibly traumatic, it’s hard to put into words, so I won’t. But as I look back on it now, God was there, holding him just as the verse states that we consistently prayed over him:

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

Jonathan and I were trained on how to do the wound care before we left the Burn Unit. We did wound care every day for about 2-4 hours, depending on that day’s pain tolerance, for 6 weeks. We were surprised to learn how few medical professionals in Amarillo knew what to do with his size of burns. God was faithful in providing neighbors that knew what to do and helped us on so many occasions, and we still hold those neighbors dear. My parents, both who had worked in the medical profession, were able to help us tremendously with the wound care and provisions. One of the biggest concerns for burns is infection and he had very large open wounds during this time. I had amazing friends and family come in and deep clean his room while we were in Lubbock, my parents bought mounds of white towels, washcloths, and sheets. We bleached everything all day every day and didn’t cross contaminate. It truly feels like a miracle that he never got an infection as every nurse in the Burn Unit explained the high likelihood of infection setting in. Much of those weeks we struggled to keep our heads above water, it felt like we were drowning. It’s hard to put into words the continual pain he was in, and how horrible it was to not be able to fix it for him. We were just surviving day-to-day, trying to keep him from getting infection and the overwhelming pain under control, praying he would walk again. His physical therapist and a dear friend that’s also a physical therapist helped calm our fears and teach him to walk without developing contracture. There were multiple times that we could not see the goodness of God during the deepest pain of those weeks, but yet He was faithful to us in so many ways.

After 6 weeks of incredibly painful daily wound care, and further debridement in the Lubbock burn clinic, they decided to perform skin graft surgery on the back of his thigh where it had hyper-granulated and converted to third degree. This is where the shorts had been allowed to continue burning to his skin after he caught on fire. The skin graft was taken from the front of his thigh where he had not been burned. After the skin graft surgery, he was completely immobile for 3 days in the burn unit, but he felt so much better after the skin graft. The relief of wound care after that brought us all to tears, we were so thankful his pain was under control. It took him a few months to be able to walk normally and he had physical therapy through October. He now has full range of motion of his legs, and he was released from the burn clinic visits on Dec 21, 2020.

In February of 2021, I finally decided it may be time for me to watch the video that Garren had on his phone of the experiment they were doing. It was called the “Burning Worm” experiment. Sand is packed into a pie pan, a pile of sugar is added, then rubbing alcohol is poured on top of the sugar. Then the combination of alcohol and sugar is lit with a match/lighter, and it creates what looks like a worm coming out of the ground. The video was 13 minutes long during which time the experiment was performed in several pie pans before it captured the moment of the accident, and it continued after the moment when he dropped his phone when he caught on fire. It showed his teacher pouring rubbing alcohol on an open flame outside in the wind, engulfing him as soon as the flammable liquid hit the flame. He was on fire for a total of 40 seconds. It also showed the amount of dishonesty she had told us in how things happened, and it showed how negligent she was, not only with my son but with the very close possibility of the other kids there being injured as well. The pain of the year was difficult to process, not only the burn trauma, but the broken trust of people we entrusted the safety of our son with.

We spent months after the skin graft surgery in physical therapy, then trauma therapy, and many doctors’ appointments. He will always have to wear coverings over the scars and an abundance of sunscreen, but finally on Sept 2, 2021, we were going to have the majority of the burn trauma in the past. Garren’s last trauma counseling session was set for September 10, and we felt like we were on the end of it and could really start healing, and I remember it being a very hopeful feeling that we could move on in life. (continue to part 2 for the rest of the story)