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Adam is my baby.....shhhhhh don't let him know I said that! He is my last child (another boy) and was the biggest child I had, he weighed in at 10 lbs. and 2 ozs. He is a beautiful person but you can tell by his newest picture he is a rebel and in the full blown stage of rebellion, but hey I love him anyway he is mine. Adam got burned in April of 82 and was flown to the North Carolina Burn Unit in Chapel Hill. He was with my best friend and he rolled off the bed and fell on a baseboard heater and got pinned between the bed and the wall on top of this heater, he was burned 60% of his body with varying degrees of burns some 2nd, some 3rd and a few 1st degree burns. He was in the hospital for 45 days and had a hard time recovering. He had two skin graft operations and lots of therapy in the hospital and what I did when he came home. In December of 1993 I moved back to Vidalia and then more trouble began to come with me well really for Adam. I noticed a lump on Adam's leg where he had had his artery I V at the hospital when he got burned. I took him to the Doctor and he looked at it. It was an abscessed stitch that didn't get removed and didn't dissolve. We had to tie him on a papoose board and he had to open his ankle up and dig around in there and get the stitch. It was awful! But since I did Adam's therapy I knew not to show any fear and try to comfort him. Fi I was living in the housing projects in Lyons and Adam fell off the bed and busted his head open, to the hospital we went, 11 stitches. The next day he fell off the bed again and almost busted his stitches (you see in project housing you aren't allowed to put carpet down and the floors are cement) my mother went and got me a braided rug. I was now at the point of my life where I thought I would need a rubber suit to put him in, hehe. Six months after that we moved across town to some other project units (they were remodeling) and the lady next door had kids that my kids played with.....well....their big wheel tricycle was busted and the molded plastic seat was splintered to a point, I let the lady know that it was dangerous and should be replaced before one of our kids got hurt on it. Well guess who's kid got hurt? Yeah right, My Adam! Her kid came up too fast and run into Adam with it and he fell right on the point of that plastic and had a nice hole in his chin, well, Dad was visiting then so I handed him to him and said you take him to the hospital this time, and he did. Six months after that I had a new home, my own trailer, and I was in the bathroom and the boys were playing and BJ was chasing Adam through the livingroom, I heard a thud and then a scream..... I ran into the living room and there is Adam in a bloody mess. He had tripped over the rung on the rocker and went face first into the wood arm of the couch and busted his head open over his right eye. At this time I was married and my husband at the time had the only car we had and couldn't be found and we had no phone, so I grab up a bleeding Adam and take off to the neighbors house where I beat on the door frantically and ask if they could give me a ride to the hospital. Scared the wits out of them we both were covered in blood and it took a few minutes for them to understand what was going on. I rushed back to the house and got my purse and BJ and to the hospital we go.....19 stitches that time. Another 6 months go by and I get very edgy and watch Adam very closely....7 months.......8 months.....BOOM! Adam decides he is a big boy and wants to climb a tree.....he falls out of the tree and a stick sticks in his side, where you say, his side where he was burned so bad. I lost it then, I went hysterical....screaming and crying...and driving to the hospital....it looked as if that child had been shot with an arrow and someone broke off the feather part. I am flying down Highway 280 and this cop tries to pull me over and I roll down my window and shout my kid has a stick in his side and he gives me an escort to the hospital since we were so close. I get there and he jerks the door open grabs the kid and tell ME to go park, go park I am thinking,....so I did. Got inside and they removed it, it was only 2 1/2 inches long and it just missed rupturing his bladder, but he was okay in a few weeks. He is very afraid of heights now because of this. By the way the tree was little only about 2 or 3 feet tall. By this time Adam is about 5 years old and I am feeling like we will be okay. Wrong. Six months go by .....then 7 months......then BOOM again.... his brother, BJ, was playing with him and he fell off the bed and hit the night light busted his head open again. By this time I was use to it and went calmly to the hospital and tried to explain to a Doctor why, if we could help it, not have stitches put in. After I explained the reason and the times he has been there, he understood and Adam came home with butterfly tapes that were the equivalent of 11 stitches. By this time I didn't think Adam would live to see his 21st birthday at all. I wanted to just cage him up somewhere in a rubber room where he would never get hurt again. Six months after this the little fellow decided to play monkey and swing on the shower curtain rod in the bathroom and busted his head open again but only had a few stitches then. Brian's birthday is in May and that year I bought him a bb-gun, well he had this old one so I let Adam have it he was 6 and it was a little one so I thought he could handle it, they were playing outside and I was sitting on the porch watching them (didn't want any windows to be shot out) and it was really hot and I asked them if they wanted to have a drink and I went inside for a minute to fix us cold drinks. Adam comes inside and told me Brian shot him. I looked and sure enough the bb was under the skin sitting on his knuckle, that required day surgery at the local hospital with him being put to sleep and them opening up the knuckle and getting it out. After this we went to a friends house and their son had a three wheeler and was giving the kids rides on it, we stepped inside for a minute and next thing you know Allen is running inside screaming to go help Adam. He had let Adam drive the thing and he had almost decapitated himself on a bobbed-wire fence and the three-wheeler was turned over on top of him. He has a scar now on his neck where the bobbed-wire cut it, another 6 stitches. He had stitches another two times after that but I cant remember them all, I think I was brain dead by this time and worried about him constantly. Finally, one day it just stopped. He hasn't had any stitches since but once and that was in 92 in Savannah when I talked him into more burn surgery on his arm. It had drawn down and we had to have a release operation done where he could play sports again. He did go on and played football, baseball and won a trophy for basketball and he never did get hurt again. He is 15 now and I still worry about my baby. But at least he isn't getting so beat up and banged up now. He is a typical teenager in full blown rebellion and wants to look different and be special and unique. I already think he is unique and special and wish that he would realize it soon. He likes to shock people by looking wicked, by dressing in black and having purple hair, which is now faded to red. He He. But underneath if he lets you inside you find a very caring sweet person who has a very great personality and is rather handsome if I do say so myself. I am sure Adam will have very many adversities in the future but I hope he comes out of them the way he has in the past, he is some trooper! A couple of years ago he wrote a story of his burns and what it is like to be burned and having people make fun of you and not understanding and how he has overcome all this. He had to make a speech in front of the whole school cause his paper was chosen over all the rest as one of the top 5 to win an award. After the speech there wasn't a dry eye in the house! He didn't win, but he placed third, and he cried. But he had the guts to get up there and tell a very personal story. And in my heart he is definitely a WINNER!!!!!!! More on Adam's Story..... He is back in school at Vidalia High School and is doing well. He is happy, he has straight A's right now. I want to be excited about it but cant really, I keep thinking if I had to repeat 9th grade all over again I could make straigt A's also. But I am proud he is enjoying school more this year. He is taking a class in textiles and something else it is another name for Home economics like we use to take in school in the 70's. When Adam lived with his dad for two years, his step-mother Ellen made him learn to iron his own clothes at the time, it really ticked him off, and he rebelled furiously. He had been use to mom doing everything for him. You know how these Southern women are, but this northern step-mom says no way boy, time you learned for yourself. His teacher in class asked if anyone knew how to iron and Adam said yes and came to the front of the class. Well the teacher couldnt believe it, could you. Look at Adam's picture does that look like someone who can iron? He proceeded to iron a pair of slacks lickety split and handed them back to her with a crease down each leg perfectly straight. She was impressed! She then handed him a shirt with buttons down the front and and he ironed it just as quickly. Then he reached and grabbed one of the buttons and twisted it off, she looked at him in shock and asked what he was doing. He said the button looks loose so I took it off, do you have a needle and thread and he began to sew the button on and handed it back to her with a smile Then she was very impressed! But alas teachers always wins...she asked him if he could run a sewing machine and he said no and took his seat. But he is enjoying the Spanish class and the textiles class. This mom is just keeping her fingers crossed for the rest of the year, hehe!!!!!!