Harry Waizer talks in a whisper about getting back to work. His vocal cords were charred in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, possibly when he inhaled burning jet fuel, and now he is pondering how to put his extensive experience in corporate tax law to use, even though his voice is weak and he is distracted by pain.
For Mary Jos, the ability to concentrate comes and goes. Her mental focus sputters when she reads, and her doctors have told her it is often the last function to be restored, as though it is the last priority for a body reeling from searing memories and third-degree burns.
Vasana Mututanont is one of the few Sept. 11 survivors with severe burns who are back at work. A Thai national who works for her government promoting investment in her homeland, she returned to work two months after the terrorist attacks, despite burns over 40% of her body and injuries to another 40%, where a thin layer of healthy skin was peeled off to graft over the burns. At first, Mututanont took her husband or daughter along to assist her on her business trips. Then she mastered the art of slathering medicinal cream on her back on her own.
For the last two years, three who survived the severe burns they suffered Sept. 11 have been engaged in what one spouse likened to a slow, unrelenting dance, a healing marathon of two steps forward, one step back: a successful graft followed by pneumonia, a joint gone stiff by morning, a scar that was healing flat starting to raise up and wrinkle.
"Burns are a very different kind of injury. They heal, heal, then regress," said Jos, 55, a gregarious, ruddy-faced woman with a quick smile. Her clear face is almost unscathed, but she still wears pressure garments that cover up her left arm and chest. "Until you grasp that back and forth is going to happen, until you understand that's the way burns operate, it's hard to accept."
Jos has been released from physical therapy three times. Each time she had to restart after regression. "You don't like it when you go backward, but at least you understand the process," she said.
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Collateral damage
Advances in burn treatment over the last 25 to 30 years enable most patients to live independently, doctors say. But people who have suffered severe burns will never be able to sit in the sun, participate in strenuous sports, sleep comfortably, even perspire, because their sweat glands are gone. Some suffer pain; even more contend with relentless itching. There is collateral damage to joints and nerves.
