Like so many of us when we head into middle age, Laugun Wheeler struggles with what she sees in the mirror sometimes.
However, unlike most of us, Wheeler is looking at the scars she has after suffering burns to 90 per cent of her body.
One year ago, in September, while working at her maintenance job, Wheeler was blasted by hot water.
A coworker found her and brought her to the emergency room at the Cariboo Memorial Hospital. She was in there for about two days, and was in and out of consciousness as she waited for an evacuation to Vancouver's burn unit.
Initially, she was assessed as having first and second degree burns to an estimated 40 per cent of her body. However, due to the continued impacts as she waited for treatment and the medication she was given to protect her other systems, by the time she arrived in Vancouver, the burns had deepened and grown.
The prognosis she was given at the time was not good.
On Oct. 1, her mother was brought in to possibly say goodbye as medical staff told Wheeler's mother her daughter may not survive.
For two months, she was in a medically induced coma in Vancouver.
After multiple surgeries and skin grafts, a now-conscious Wheeler spent even more months in care, learning to walk and function again. She was then at the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre doing physical, occupational, and speech therapy for two months. When she was released from there, she stayed with her parents in Victoria where she could more easily access the therapy and counselling she still needed.
But she was determined to return to independence and her own space in Williams Lake, which she eventually did, and is now preparing to return to work in October.
"I think I'm ready," she said, noting her coworkers and the staff have been very supportive and kind.
"I was nervous at first," she said about the idea of returning, but when she went and spoke to her coworkers, they helped put her mind at ease.
"They're really lovely people," she said, adding she's looking forward to a return to the routine of having a job.
So as things get back as much as possible to life as it was before the workplace accident which nearly killed her, she just wants to be able to look in the mirror and feel good about what she sees.
She is still healing and has to wear compression garments on most of her body to help support her skin and smooth it as it heals, so she's doing her research to see how she might address the discoloration and scarring which she'll be left with.
Researching a number of different treatments, she has just completed some consultations which led her to choose Halo treatments, a type of laser light therapy, as the option she will pursue to help her look more like herself by smoothing and fading the dark scars. She is also hoping to one day be able to get some tattoo work done to help cover the scars. She had tattoo art on her arm, lower leg and rib cage, but all were lost to the burns.
But the Halo treatments and tattoo work are not cheap, and with an initial estimate for the Halo treatments alone of $12,000 she is now hoping for some help from her community to make it happen.
So Wheeler has started a GoFundMe with a goal of $12,000 to help her regain some of her self-confidence through the treatments and hopefully begin to reclaim her sense of self.
This winter she hopes to even try to get back on her snowboard, building up her strength and stamina, and return to a somewhat normal life.
She said she feels lucky to even be able to be returning to these things.
To support Wheeler's GoFundMe, go to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cosmetic-and-tattoo-scar-coverups
