Fight to heal: Burned by acid, Becky Slabaugh braces for a long recovery

(Editor's note: This story was originally published on July 13, 2005)

While it was a relief to have her husband out of the hospital and under arrest, Becky Slabaugh was suffering, physically and mentally. And she felt oddly sad for the man who had disfigured her with acid.

The swelling in her left eye had gone down enough that she was able to see through a small slit. But the chemical that had melted Becky's glasses caused more damage to her right eye.

The cornea, the skin that covers the eyeball, is clear, which allows light to pass through. In Becky's case, that skin had been burned and doctors were worried that she might lose the sight in that eye.

In California, her son, Jeremy Bear, and his wife, Carey, boarded a plane four days after the attack, bound for Akron -- a trip that was paid for by Becky's employer, Sprenger Retirement Centers, owner of Tallmadge's Heather Knoll Nursing & Rehabilitation Center.

Waiting for a connection in Chicago, Jeremy melted into an airport seat and sobbed. When his mother needed him most, he wasn't near, and he regretted his choice to move West. But he had decided at least one thing: He wouldn't wince at the sight of her.

Becky craned her neck when she heard the door open.

"Who's that?"

"It's me, Mom. It's Jeremy. How are you?"

"It's my son! My baby boy . . . "

And though he had vowed to keep his emotions in check, his eyes filled with tears as he reached out to grasp his mother's gauze-covered hand.

"I love you, Mom," he said, unable to hide his sorrow.

"Oh, my baby. I'm sorry this upsets you."

Dr. David Andrews, a man Becky would grow to trust and respect, has seen lots of burn victims. Still, it's hard to accept that anyone could harm another person the way William F. Slabaugh confessed to harming Becky. Getting caught up in the anger of such a violent act is something the doctor avoids.

Instead, he focuses on making people whole again.

Nearly a week after a helicopter brought her to the hospital, Becky underwent her first of five skin graft surgeries.

The areas that weren't burned were used as donor sites, places where very thin slices of skin were removed. That skin was then run though a meshing machine that cut it into something that resembled fishnet stockings, allowing the skin to be stretched to cover a larger area. Though the meshing keeps the donor skin from shrinking, it leaves permanent markings. That's why meshed skin isn't used on the face.

In the recovery room, Becky's children saw their mother for the first time since the attack without the bandages covering her head. Her hair was shaved and her face raw. Erin struggled to find just one feature that she could linkto her mother.

"Excruciating," Becky murmured, barely above a whisper. "Excruciating."

Operations to graft her arms, hands and side followed the surgery to her legs. And on July 25, a nurse surprised Becky by asking if she would like to go outside for some fresh air.

As she was helped into a wheelchair, Becky was thankful the film that once covered her right eye was gone and her sight restored. From the parking deck, she could see the sky, and the tops of trees below.

"Oh! Do you feel that breeze? That's God breathing . . . " she said, taking in the sweet smell of freshly cut grass.

It was a turning point -- the first time in two weeks since the attack that she knew she would be OK.

As she was rolled back toward the doors to the hospital, she saw someone whose entire body was wrapped in bandages.

"Wow, look at that person," she thought.

The closer she got, the more she noticed the mummified patient was staring back at her through the eye holes in the dressings.

"Oh, my God!" she said aloud. "That's me."

The nurse, whose only goal was to brighten Becky's day, apologized for not offering a warning that Becky might see her reflection in the glass doors. The patient reassured her that it was OK. The trip outdoors was truly a gift -- on this day after her 49th birthday.

Grafting the face is a tedious process that's done in stages. Even under the best circumstances, it's generally never good because it often leads to scarring.

On the first day of the face grafting, Dr. Andrews removed all of the burned skin from Becky's face and covered it with pig's skin. The body doesn't immediately recognize that pig skin is foreign, and that provides doctors time to check for bleeding and other possible complications. At the same time, skin was shaved from Becky's scalp, leaving the hair follicles behind.

The following day, the pig's skin was removed and replaced by her own skin.

Because physicians want patients to keep still following grafts to their faces, Becky was given paralytic drugs and placed on a ventilator, which was attached to a breathing tube and wired to her front teeth. She couldn't communicate, and her children feared she was in great pain and unable to tell them. But hospital staff kept close, holding her hand and making sure she was comfortable.

When Becky was removed from the ventilator on the fifth day, the anger she felt for her husband but had kept pent up since the attack was unleashed.

"He can feed himself, read a book, exercise, and he's not in physical pain," she said. "Life is a picnic for him. The man chose to put me through this unbelievable torture and I don't care if he is put away in some prison!"

Though pain, and now anger, engulfed her, she was making great strides -- feeding herself and taking her first steps, with the help of a walker, about a week after her last graft surgery.

Though people kept asking if she had looked in a mirror, she consciously avoided doing so. But on the day that she insisted on using the bathroom facilities alone, some 24 days after the attack, she forgot to turn away.

Up until then, people had told Becky that, under the circumstances, she looked good. So, in her mind's eye, she had a fantasylike vision of herself.

But what she saw was oozing wounds, a patchwork quilt of skin and stitches, and a feeding tube protruding from her nose.

"Help me!" she cried, recoiling.

The image darkened Becky's mood. Nurse Judy Protacio sat with her throughout the night and cradled her bandaged hand.

"You are an incredible person," Judy reminded her. "You will get through this."

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Burned by acid, Becky Slabaugh braces for a long recovery