Super Beautiful

Being a burn victim, and surviving, and thriving, translated…

A little over two decades ago, after being lifted from the burning flames into the ICU, Beauty Chen had sixty percent burns over her body, and, thirty percent burns were third degree.  Without knowing whether or not she would survive, the doctor performed an abortion on her second born, which she was in her first trimester of, in case her fetus will be malformed………

“When I rode the busses, I would sit down, and, the person next to me would stand up automatically; at the pool, the moment I dove in, everybody hops out of the pool.”  Up to here, in the jam-packed gymnasium of Chien-Guo Middle School in Taoyuan, there were, the echoes of laughter.  It is, difficult, for me, to imagine, that Beauty Chen can now, talk about the trials of her life with such a light note.

not my photograph…

As the students were still, whispering and laughing, she’d asked them, “What, if you have a friend like me, would you do?”

Burned, Engaging in a Never-Ending Tug-of-War with Pains

A little over two decades ago, Beauty Chen had over sixty percent burns over her body as she had been, lifted from the scene of the fire to the intensive care unit.  Without knowing if she can survive, the doctor removed her second born, which she was, already pregnant with for three months already, in case the baby would become malformed—as the treatment and the injections she’d needed during her surgeries of antibiotics and steroids will have an adverse effect on the fetus.  For the three days that followed, the hospital had, notified her family multiple times about how she was, about to die.  In the very end, although death wasn’t able to take her, it’d still, left that huge scar from the tug of war it’d played with her.

The first two weeks after the surgeries were performed, her bed was, filled with the fluid, the flesh, and the burnt skin.  Every day, the nurses would bring in a keg of iodine, and, scrubbed hard, to get the dead tissues off of her body; and, as she’d slowly, recovered from the aches and pains of the morning rounds, the afternoon round came around.  She said, “back then, I thought that the nurses were evil, like she was, scrubbing me, with a wiry scrub.”  But, the wounds must be cleaned off, for the skin grafts to become effective.

Skin graft is to take a section of healthier skins from another part of the body, and, implanting it on the burn.  Meaning, that other than the burns, the implant site was also, a wound.  She said, “and, it wasn’t over after they’d implanted the skins, and it doesn’t always, necessarily, end, successfully either.”, she’d told.  If the wounds on both sites weren’t taken good care off, then, it would be, ruined, and, they’d had to, scrape it all off, and do the implants all over again.  Beauty Chen extended her arm for the students sitting in the front rows to feel, and, the skin felt like the barbequed fish pieces.

and no, still not my photograph…

After every skin implant, she’d needed to wear the pressure suits for twenty hours a day, and she’d needed to wear the pressure suit for a total of two years, to prevent the scar tissues from forming.  The skin after the burn doesn’t have the pores to breathe with, plus the pressure suit, it’s an, unbearable kind of, stuffiness and heat.  But, for the sake of the scars retracting, causing the joints to become deformed, the extensions from the rehabilitations, every single day, every single time, it’s always, a struggle, and, the wounds would be, tore open all over again.  Bleeding, again, the pains, and itching, unbearable, it’s the shared experience of all the burned victims.  Beauty Chen laughed that she’d learned, to scream loudly, through the assortment of pains she’d endured through, that she could probably, sing higher than A-Mei the singer.

She’d entered into the crowd in the auditorium, to interact with everybody, she’d even, run to the very back of the gymnasium, so the students sitting very far off can see her skin, to touch and feel her nose after reconstructions.  The sun light passed through the windows, and the colors of the rainbow illuminated her purple short hair, and the light that ran around all over made her looked like the Super Mario after he’d gotten that star, in that moment, she’d become, “Superbly Beautiful”, passing in the crowd, bringing joys to the students.

Pushed Through, to When She’s Finally Able to Get Out of the Hospitals, Then What?

The four month after she was burned, Beauty Chen finally made it to her discharge; but that only meant, that the doctor was finished, treating her external injuries.  In order to heal completely, it’s not like gaining a couple more super stars, and instantly, made over, but traded with, twenty years’ worth of persistence and hard work.

She said, in an animated way, “Getting burned is not like how it’d played on television, boom, you’d have an afro, then the very next day, everything turns back to normal again.”  Beauty Chen could always make the students grin ear to ear in her speeches.

As she was discharged from the hospital, her features were all, mingled together.  She wore a skin-colored mask, walked down the streets, showing her eyes, without the eyelids, in order to make the nostrils, there were, two broken-off pens, with the spring placed into her mouth so it can open.  The skin lost the elasticity after the implant, and her features had to be, prodded open by outside forces, to treat the convulsions she would be having.  And in the end, as she walked outside, a stranger said to her, “You look like a ghost, why are you out in the open, scaring people?” the words are hurtful, especially to those injured who’d gone through endless reconstruction surgeries, to work hard, to return their lives back to normal.  She’d said, with a heaviness, “Then, what was, the purpose of me, working so hard, to stay alive, so I can get discharged from the hospital?”, she’d blown her nose, and because her tear ducts were burned to languor.  Even if she was really crying, nobody could tell, I’d guessed, that what the snot, the tears, are all, swallowed, back into her body again.

Beauty Chen said, that she was unwilling to head outside looking the way she does, but she’d needed to, continue her treatment, and pay up the over-million dollars worth of her medical bills.  “I’d needed to make the money, but, when the business owners saw that you’re a burn victim, then, they’d become, unwilling, to hire you.”  She’d originally worked as a manager in the clothing industries and earned a six figure salary by the month, by the fourth year after she was released from the hospitals, she’d worked for $8,500N.T.s at a factory, and, her specialty from before, became, totally, useless after she was injured.  In the twenty years that followed, she’d worked hard, to hone up on a second, a third, life skill, worked hard, to take the certification examinations, and kept, changing jobs, and now, she’s working as a case manager, and became a mother of three.

At the end of the lecture, Beauty told us the answer to the question, “People like us, looking like Frankensteins, riding the busses, you just need to, not avoid us, and, we would know, that you, understand what we went through.”

Several days later, as I was, sorting through Beauty’s story, an elderly man got into the seat from behind me, as he’d sat down, he’d almost, bumped into me, and, although I’d moved away some, I’d still get affected by his movements.  As he was about to leave, he couldn’t eye the distance, and so he’d asked me, “Is the person still next to you?”, the elderly man’s face was burned, and, he’d become, nearly blind.

I’d touched his arms lightly, to let him know my location, and I’d asked if he’d needed a hand.  The elderly said with an optimistic tone of voice, “No, no, you are, a handsome lad, aren’t you?”, I’d watched him leave slowly, from the window of the café, I’d, taken a deep inhale, and, as I exhaled, I’d lowered my head, to look at the story I was writing, and, I’d felt, that my mood became—super beautiful.

And so, this, is how someone got a firsthand look, into the life of someone who’d been injured in a fire, and, by writing the woman’s story, interviewing her, this man gained a depth of perspective of what the people who’d suffered the burns had to undergo, and, he’d developed empathy toward them.