Everything to Live For: The Inspirational Story of Turia Pitt (14 page)

Célestine stayed in Sydney, sleeping on Genji and Angela’s couch. After a few visits to Turia with Genji and Michael she came up with a proactive plan to move her daughter’s recovery forward. She’d noticed that, with best of intentions, Genji and Michael were repeating the same words: Genji was saying, ‘This is the calm before the storm’ and reminding Turia of things they did as kids: ‘Remember the time I wanted you to jump off the roof and you wouldn’t?’ Michael was telling her how much he loved her and what a great future they would have together. Her father was repeating the same positive ‘You can do this’ message.

‘She can hear you and she’s not stupid,’ she told everyone. ‘She will get bored with all that after a while; everyone who visits must read to her.’

Michael was delegated to read Turia poetry; her father, who had returned to Ulladulla but was driving to Sydney at weekends to visit, was told to read her interesting bits of news and articles from scientific magazines; Célestine elected to read Turia’s favourite books. Genji didn’t want to be told what to do – he would read or say whatever he thought appropriate.

There was a TV and DVD player in her ICU room and they got her some movies to watch – Célestine believed that even if Turia was heavily drugged, it was important to keep her brain active.

But this was before the breakthrough with the donated skin, and Turia was not out of the woods. When she had to have a tracheotomy after three weeks and her grafts were continually becoming infected and her wounds wouldn’t heal and her kidneys failed – those were very bleak days. They were again told to prepare for the worst. They were in the realms of last resort; the hospital was importing skin from the United States and waiting its delivery.

Professor Haertsch had given Michael his mobile number and – after the operation to cover the infected areas with the donated skin on the Monday – Michael called him; the operation had gone really well. They were another step up the ladder to where they could say Turia would live.

Of course he knew there would be more operations. But to Michael, every operation was just another one out of the way; another step forward to her living.

Slowly but steadily Turia’s body started to respond to the donated skin and fight the infection. She had miraculously turned the corner; the next goal was getting her out of ICU and up to the Burns Unit on the seventh floor. The tracheotomy stayed in for several weeks and Turia was unable to speak. She was drugged and not very responsive. Michael would talk to her and she would nod; she could move her head or feet on command but her eyes mostly stayed shut. At first her eyes would be closed and he didn’t know if she was asleep; he would ask her to wiggle her big toe if she could hear him and when she did he was stoked – she could hear him. As the days went by she began to lift her foot up – that was real progress.

While Turia had been gravely ill during those first weeks, it was decided visitors would be restricted to immediate family, including the Hoskins; Célestine even chose to keep Heimanu and Toriki away. So Briggs was in for a big shock on her first visit since the day of Turia’s admission; she arrived to find her friend unresponsive and with a tracheotomy pipe poking from her throat. Briggs promptly fainted. Michael wasn’t there but Gary was in the room. He called for a nurse, made sure Briggs was alright and then cuddled Turia, as if to protect her from the drama. Everyone assumed Turia had been unaware of the incident. But as soon as she was able to speak again, she said, ‘I can’t believe Briggsy fainted.’

On 4 October Turia was finally considered strong enough to be transferred from intensive care to the Burns Unit on the seventh floor. Everyone was very excited. When Michael and Célestine arrived at the hospital and got the news, they high-fived and whooped. They were told she was being prepared for the move and they could see her upstairs in two hours.

But the day Turia was transferred was also the day the bandages came off her face. So the excitement of getting her into the Burns Unit was tinged with the sad reality of seeing for the first time what had happened to her face. It was very confronting for Célestine to see the disfigurement her beautiful daughter would have to live with – the rough and blotchy grafted skin, the loss of her nose, misshapen mouth – so she concentrated on the view from the window. ‘Look at this lovely view you have now; you can see trees,’ she enthused brightly.

Michael was happy Turia still had her hair and some of her eyebrows. Her mouth was swollen and her nose was diminished. But she was living and he could see her beautiful eyes. Besides, the surgeons had told him they would work with her to make her face look better.

Three days later Turia was due to go back to theatre; Michael sat with her until it was time to go in thinking about the next steps she was about to undergo. Some of the donated skin was to be peeled off and replaced by grafts from her own skin; by then the original donor sites had healed well enough for them to be reused. Professor Haertsch planned to skin-graft her face, neck and arms . . . and, as far as he knew until he reassessed the situation, possibly amputate the fingers on her right hand.

Michael, who had taken over signing the consent forms, had had to sign the form that included amputations but he had not told Turia. He thought, ‘Well, if she loses her fingers she’s still got her hand.’

It was 7 October, a date Gary Hoskin will never forget. He was sitting in the waiting area of the Burns Unit, a place he’d become quite used to as he had sometimes spent hours there while Michael was with Turia. He saw Peter Haertsch walking along the corridor, head down and looking fairly serious.

‘Peter,’ Gary called and Professor Haertsch swung around then came over and grasped Gary’s hand.

‘Can you tell me what’s happening with Turia’s fingers?’ Gary asked.

The surgeon looked at him sadly. ‘I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to have to take her hands off.’

‘No, you can’t,’ Gary begged. ‘Please no.’

Professor Haertsch, a tall, well-built man with more than thirty years’ experience as a plastic surgeon, did not want to remove the hands from the wrists of this young woman, incapacitating her even more. He reached out and squeezed Gary’s shoulder reassuringly before walking off briskly. Gary put his head in his own hands and wept.

Turia’s hands were saved but the battle to keep all her fingers was lost; that day the fingers on her right hand and one on her left hand were amputated.

When Célestine saw her after the amputation it triggered a very strong emotion. She had lost the big toe on her right foot in a motor-cycle accident when she was eighteen. At the time Célestine’s mother had been horrified at this ‘disfigurement’; she was told her husband would leave her and no one else would want her. For the next twenty-five years Célestine never showed her bare right foot outside the house; she would bury her foot in the sand at the beach and never wore open-toed shoes.

And what was a big toe when Turia had lost so many lovely fingers? A toe was nothing! Turia must not feel bad about losing fingers and she, Célestine, wasn’t going to talk about fingers. She focused on the positive – at least Turia still had a hand. ‘You have your hand, darling; you haven’t lost your hand. You can still surf and swim.’ But Turia, still drugged and fuzzy, lifted her bandaged right stump where her fingers used to be and cried. It fell to the doctors to tell her she had lost her fingers.

Over the next two months Turia underwent several more grafting operations, including procedures to release contractions on her nose and upper lip and the removal of her ring finger on her left hand. All surgical procedures contain risks but for someone as severely injured as Turia with already compromised organs, the dangers of each subsequent surgery and attendant anaesthetic were manifold. Only after about eight weeks was her surgical team confident of her survival.

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URIA STARTED HER SLOW AND PAINFUL PROCESS OF
rehabilitation, Michael and Célestine determined they would work with her towards the next major milestone – getting her home – even though that was some way off. They began to call themselves ‘the three amigos’. Michael and Célestine had established a routine even before Turia was moved to the Burns Unit.

For Célestine, much of that routine revolved around nutrition. Initially, Turia was fed intravenously then via a tube. When Turia was eventually able to eat, everything had to be sucked through a straw. Celestine had long been a devotee of wholesome, nutritious food and her garden was full of fresh vegetables and there was an excellent fish shop five minutes down the road; knowing that good food was a way to build up Turia’s strength, she read up on the type of food that would be best for her daughter. There was no way Célestine would have Turia eating hospital food; Michael, who delivered esky-loads of delicious food to Turia’s bedside often ended up eating the hospital food instead.

Célestine began splitting her time: she would spend one week in Sydney then one week at home with John and the boys. When she was in Sydney, the boys were looked after by their father or John. Gary Hoskin had gone back home but still travelled up to Sydney every Tuesday on business; he would take Célestine with him, leave her at Genji’s and collect her the following week.

During her ‘at home’ week, she would make nourishing soups from her garden vegetables or from fresh fish; John would help her prepare and freeze the packs of food and she would take them to Genji and Angela’s apartment, where their fridge bulged with beautiful food, lovingly prepared. Angela had her new mother-in-law sleeping on her couch every second week and her husband’s best friend sleeping in the spare bedroom for five months but Célestine and Michael never heard her or Genji complain.

Célestine’s faith kept her going; it was faith in Turia’s survival that helped her jump off Genji and Angela’s couch at 5.30 each morning to squeeze fresh juices and pack the day’s food in an esky. Then she and Michael would climb in the little blue Hyundai for the long drive through the morning traffic to be at the hospital by 7 am.

When Turia was able to eat some solids, Célestine would make small dinners and cut everything into tiny pieces and Michael would reheat them in the Burns Unit kitchen. One of her favourite breakfasts was the pancakes Célestine or Michael would spoon into her mouth in little squares with a dab of maple syrup. ‘Mm, yum, Mum,’ she’d say. Julie also made tasty dinners cut into small portions, which she would send to Sydney with Gary. But the feeding was a messy business and one that used to distress Célestine until Turia had an operation to release the contractions on her lips.

The days were busy. Turia’s dressings had to be changed every day, a painful procedure which could take several hours; because of her Tahitian heritage she was prone to strong contracture and scar formation and this had to be taken into account when managing her scars. Turia also had physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. She was fitted with splints on her wrists and hands to stop any unnecessary stretching of her grafts.

Healthy skin has natural pressure which is absent in people who have had full-thickness burns. Without this pressure, the skin will form deep, inflexible scars as it slowly repairs itself over a long period of time. In Turia’s case the compression garments needed to be worn twenty-three hours out of every twenty-four in order to be effective. In early November Turia was measured for a set of compression garments for her arms, chest and legs and face; the black face mask was to become her trademark in later public appearances.

Walking is a major part of the healing process for burns patients. After being bedridden for weeks and the numerous operations she had undergone, Turia was very feeble. There was a lot of planning involved to get her back on her feet. From first sitting, she had to move to getting out of bed and walk to the big chair in her room; once in the chair it was difficult for her to get out of it. She was then put into big support boots because her legs were so fragile, and assisted out of her room. The initial challenge was to get to the reception desk, which wasn’t far as her room was the first on the ward. Step. Step. Step. Michael found it difficult to watch.

It was extremely confronting for Célestine when she saw Turia painfully step, step, stepping slowly along the corridor with tubes everywhere. She was supported by people either side, a nurse was pushing a wheelchair behind her and the physiotherapist was helping her from the front; Célestine could see each step caused Turia pain. She never cried in front of Turia but tears streamed down her face when she saw her beautiful girl walking like she was one hundred years old.

But small steps lead to bigger steps. On her first attempt she walked to the front desk; within days she was walking halfway along the corridor; then all the way along the corridor. Next she wanted to try the stairs because the corridor was boring. So Michael and Célestine would help her down one flight; it took a supreme effort and she would get tired so they would catch the elevator back up.

Progress was also made on other fronts; Turia decided she wanted to read herself, not just have others read to her, so the occupational therapist rigged up a special book rest which could be wheeled over to the bed. Turia then mastered the art of turning pages. When Célestine arrived and witnessed this for the first time she was thrilled, but Turia said: ‘Go away, I’m reading.’ Soon Michael was buying her enough books to start her own library.

Célestine also brightened up the room. Because it was in a busy location – a lot of people walked past it each day. Everyone passing could see in through the window in the door and, as there were no curtains around the bed, it wasn’t very private. Célestine brought in colourful sarongs to drape over the empty curtain rails. She hung good luck charms and little angel ornaments and family photos. Every day she would put fresh flowers in the room – often frangipani plucked from a tree in the hospital grounds.

Célestine also set up a wardrobe in the room so Turia had different tops to choose from to wear over her dressings. And she painted Turia’s toenails to make her feet look happy. Michael brought in some toe rings.