why you should never ever leave hot oil unattended.....

***6 hours after burn accident.(pictures in previous post, 20 minutes after burn accident.) I tried to take some of the area today (day 3) but my camera was not cooperating so I'll have to try again tomorrow before re bandaging . It looks quite a bit different today than it looked then and it will be therapeutic to keep a record of it's progression.



The Story:
So, I had gotten home from grocery shopping and was going through my routine; take the dogs out, put up the groceries,pick up around the house, get dinner started,check my email, read some blogs........................that's what got me. In the end that's what got me................ I had started to heat some oil, because I wanted to make sweet potato fries with dinner and while it was heating up I went to look on the Internet and had got my self wrapped up in reading the lovely tiff's blog and her story of Gladys coming to stay. Once I was done, I went back to my oil and saw that it had just started to smoke. Justin told me when that happens I need to take it off the burner for a minute to let it cool down, which I immediately went to do, but I forgot to do one other thing he told me to do first, have a plan on where to put it! So I'm standing there with a pan of hot oil and starting to panic on where to put it down because all the burners are full (one had the dogs dinner cooking, one had the tea kettle set on it, and one was to hard to reach and then there was the one I had just pulled the pan off of) and I didn't want to mess up the counters. In my fine little frenzy for a place to put my very hot pan , I must have tipped it back and got hot oil all over my index finger , thump, and the palm of my right hand which then made me drop the hot pan of oil, which then splashed me on my right leg (Winnie and I now have matching spots, needless to say) and caught my kitchen rugs on fire . So instead of worrying about my hand like I needed to, I had to worry about my house first and make sure all flames where out before I could get to the sink and run it under cold water which in turn made the burns worse than they had to be.
I saw a doctor yesterday and luckily all burns are second and first degree. My mother-in-law was worried that I may have some full thickness burns since fingers are so close to the bone and Justin was worried I may need skin graphs.
The doctor gave me a prescription for Silvadene and told me to keep it wrapped for the next two weeks, watching for infection this week especially.(if a burn gets infected you run the risk of getting septic blood, septic blood can kill you.) On the plus side all my skin ,while cooked well done, is still in tack with no open areas and my blister's are growing daily (as gross as that sounds it's a good thing to have blisters on burns, the fluid inside is your white blood cells at work). The motion in my right hand is quite a bit restricted right now and makes a lot of everyday things much harder for me(e.i.:going to the bathroom,changing my clothes,putting my hair up)and some things are simply out of the question until my hand is healed(e.i.:washing the dishes,sewing,writing), but I'm managing with a little help here and there from Justin. And the last two mornings I've woke up feeling a little ill to my stomach,which Justin said is normal. He gives me a glass of ice water in the morning and that seems to clear it right up.
Justin told me yesterday, he feels bad because he thinks it's his fault for not teaching me better in the kitchen. I told him he should not at all. It's mine for letting my self panic even for that one second. I'm smarter than this most of the time, but sometimes it seems my brain floats away from me and I have very bad things happen to me like this. While I hope to grow out of this "accident prone" behavior some day , it has stuck with me for the last 23year ,and I fear it may be here to stay. My saving grace is my family and the care and support they give me when ever I do have these things happen and my inner peace with the fact that I'm the one that did it to myself and I've never let a bad thing happen twice (lesson learned).

To My Mom: I did not mean to scare you this afternoon with my email. I really, really am OK. I've even figured out how to wash the dishes(rubber gloves,duh!, over my bandages) since talking to you this afternoon, and I've already thought of a few other ways the rubber gloves can improve my Independence during my temporary handicap. Remember mother, I am your 25 year old daughter that still needs your hand when I cross the road, due to my "head in the clouds" syndrome, but I am also resilient and resourceful just like you. These things, they happen to me, all I can do is not freak out when the worst happens so I don't die. It hurt more than iodine and I didn't even cry. You are the one person I worried the most about telling because, well your my mom and you worry even when I tell you not to.

xoxo
heather