AN EXPERIENCE AND ITS LESSON.
By Elsie A. Brown
Some time ago I had an experience in caring for a patient six miles out in the country, who was burned nearly to death, and who lived but two weeks after the accident. Her clothing caught from the back, while she was standing in front of a fireplace in her father’s home, where she was spending the holiday season. Three comfortables were burned up in the effort of her mother to smother the flames upon her. Two thirds of the surface of the entire body was burned, and much of it so deeply that the flesh sloughed off with the skin. All day long and until after dark at night, I dressed those dreadful wounds, only stopping at times to let her rest enough to be able to go on; carefully moistening and removing the soiled dressings, cutting away the sloughing flesh and skin, cleansing with sterilized water and a weak solution of carbolic acid, also with hydrogen dioxide, powdering with iodoform (not full strength), and spreading, as with icing upon a layer cake, with a soft, soothing salve, covering with soft cheese-cloth dressings, then packing in absorbent cotton, and bandaging. Trying as were the days, they seemed less wearisome than the nights; for she would sometimes go nearly to sleep while I was dressing her, and did not know when I had finished the part upon which I was working. Nothing given induced sleep at night. My bent position over her low wide bed so continuously was exceedingly taxing, although assisted by a lady member of the family who was excellent help in many respects, but who did not understand symptoms well enough to detect danger. The patient was inclined to heart failure, which made it necessary for me to be with her almost constantly day and night, and my only release from the room was for my meals. For nine days my shoes were not unfastened from my feet. The different members of the household several times said to me, “I cannot see what keeps you up.” They thought that because I did not use flesh, and had requested that my food be simply prepared and entirely free from soda and grease of any sort, having no other seasoning than a little salt, that I was neither eating nor sleeping. I told them God’s power was added to our effort to meet the demand of the case, and I daily realized that this was so. I felt myself upheld in a special manner, and was thankful that the work of caring for this afflicted, suffering one fell to me. She, and they all, seemed to trust me fully, and my lengthy experience in the surgical wards of the Sanitarium Hospital was especially helpful here. I think I appreciated it as much as ever in my life. The physician said he did not doubt that the care given prolonged her days. My heart was deeply moved at thought of the strange providence that had without warning cut her down in the morning of life, when its prospects were brightest and best. She was young and beautiful, had been married but two years, the mother of a little one just learning to walk, of a sweet, lovable character, which made her greatly beloved by her husband and father’s household. She had professed faith in Christ, and bore her suffering with remarkable fortitude and patience. The poor heart failing at last, she fell asleep without the least apparent struggle. As I left them, they said to me, “Miss Elsie, you did all in your power to save her.” I was539made more than ever to realize the unstable character of the things of this life, and even of life itself, by this experience. Truly, if we live for the things of this life, better had it been for us had we never lived. “Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” and “set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth;” for— “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou, who changest not, abide with me!”