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Hi there, your site is really cool and i hope u don't mind me putting my story on the guestbook but u also can download to your site if you want to also. talk to you later tcss mocat Healing The Scars Reprinted from the Traverse Record Eagle by Jane Louis Boursaw Don't call Colleen Kastl a victim. She prefers the term "survivor." Kastl, now 44, was severely burned at age 2 when the furnace in her parents, utility room exploded. "Mom grabbed me, rolled me in a rug and ran outside with me," she said. Her 6-month-old brother was asleep at the tine and didn't get injured. But Kastl suffered 3rd-degree burns on 65 percent of her body. She spent six months in the hospital then. And that was only the beginning. In the years since, Kastl has endured countless surgeries, including numerous grafts, some with skin donated by her mother. "As I grew from 2 years to 5, 1 had quite a bit of surgery," said Kastl, who now lives in Mesick. "Then when I started school, it was every summer, two or three surgeries a summer, because they didn't want to do it during the School Year." Serious burns like Kastl’s are not easily, if ever completely, fixed. And they are life-changing. According to Burn Survivors On Line, 2 million people suffer burns each year in the United States. Of those, 300,000 are serious injuries, with more than 6,000 people dying from burns annually. Web sites and chat rooms dedicated to burn survivors provide an outlet for those whose repeated forays into the health care system can produce a sense of frustration and isolation. Kastl has tried to start a support group for burn survivors, but never got much response. She's willing to share her story, though, describing how 42 years later, she still copes with the effects of the accident. For one thing, Kastl must avoid the sun. She's had skin cancer on her face resulting from sun exposure five times. In each instance, the cancerous cells were removed, the skin grafted. She also cant endure cold temperatures."I go outside, but I don't go outside to stay," she said. "I could get frostbit very easily on my face." Then there are the "contractions" she experiences because burned skin doesn't grow as your body grows. "My wrists were facing the bottom of my forearms and my fingers were contracted up," she said. Kastl had to have the little fin ger on her right hand amputated about-five years ago. And even with the surgeries, burns are still evident on her legs, hands, arms and face. "You're supposed to have seven layers of skin," she said. "I have one." In the most severe cases, bum victims can experience crippling of the hands, kidney damage, shutdown of the stomach and bowel system, pneumonia, stress ulcers, stomach and bowel swelling and pulmonary problems resulting from burned airways. And sometimes, the worst scars aren't the ones you can see. Kastl still remembers the way she was treated by other children in school. "Kids are very cruel," she said. "In sixth grade, I was called contaminated, and people always stared. My parents always told me to ignore them." People still stare, she said, describing an encounter with a group of girls in the bathroom of a discount store a few years ago. "Only one was staring," she said. "But she was old enough to know better." Kastl tried to ignore it. However, when she walked past the group to dry her hands, the girl turned and continued to gawk. Kastl left and went to her car, but got to thinking about how she had a niece about the same age as that girl, and how she wouldn't want her doing that to someone. So she went back in and confronted the girl. "I said, "You know, you're old enough to know better. You could have asked what happened to me, and I would have been glad to talk about it. But I'm not giving you that benefit now," she recalled. Dale Blum, M.D., medical director of emergency services for Munson Healthcare, said that most burns hospitals see aren't as serious as Kastl's. "Every now and then you get a burn from a major event like a house fire or something exploding." said Blum. Since Traverse City doesn’t have a burn center, such acute cases are often airlifted to Grand Rapids or Ann Arbor. Here, time is of the essence, he said, since burn patients have a tendency to go into shock and develop infections and breathing problems. More commonly, burn cases involve incidents like a child being scalded by a bathtub faucet or pan of hot liquid on a stove. "That's probably the biggest thing," said Blum, either hot water or someone sets a cup of hot coffee down and the youngster will pull it down on them. "Those scenarios are all to familiar to Dennis Partidge. The 28-year-old Saginaw man was burned by a bathtub faucet when he as just 10 months old. "I was being cared for by friend while my mother as in the hospital," he said. "I was in the bathtub when the doorbell rang and was left unattended while the door was answered. I tried to pull myself up with the hot water handle and the water came on." More than 75 percent of his body was scalded. Partridge spent 38 days in the hospital and had five skin graft surgeries over the next five years, with skin being taken from his leg and placed on his right arm and face. "I was told if my accident had occurred ten years earlier, I would have died," he said. "The technology did not exist to save me then. Due to the grace of God, I have not. needed surgery since I was 5 -years old." Then there is Andrea, who didn't want her full name used for this article. She was burned at age 6 while playing with matches. "I was playing house with my sisters during the fall, and we decided that we needed a real fire," she said. As Andrea bent to pick up some twigs, the wind blew the flames the girls had ignited onto her skirt. "I panicked and just stood there crying and jumping up and down," she said. "Then I ran about 50 feet into the house. The flames were smothered by my uncle with a wet sheet and a rug." Although Andrea's burns were severe, requiring numerous grafts and surgeries, Blum said that less severe burns will quite often heal on their own. "The biggest issue is preventing an infection and then also some of the resulting scarring," he said. "That's usually when the plastic surgeons gets involved." Various plastic surgery procedures may improve the appearance or function of a burn scar. But no scar can be removed completely. "I have come to understand that I am who I am said Kastl. "lf people can’t understand that, then its' their problem, not mine." Her experiences - and what she continues to endure - have taught Kastl another important lesson, "Be happy with the way you are," she said, "because it's what's on the inside that counts." Colleen Kastl can be reached at morriscat@coslink.net

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Very nicely done.Need more pics of the crews going through their paces.Keep up the good work.My condolences to those who suffer the loss from the fatality fire.Perfect opportunity to let this serve as motivation,inspiration, and be a guiding light every time the tones drop. Congradulations, again, on the web-site. D.Gelfan