Diary of a burn Day 1 and 2

Day 1
It will be a long time before I try to cook sopapillas again. Or at least I will get a fry daddy first. Moving pots of hot oil around on the stove top is a very dangerous thing. Especially when the oil sloshes up onto your hand. Of course my knee-jerk reaction was to pull back and wipe the oil off on my pants. Do you know what happens when you do that? Oil all over the floor and stove and torn skin on your hand. (Day 1) I can't even begin to describe the burning, stinging, raw pain...but, stupid me, I'd rather tough it out under cold water than make a trip to the doctor. Thankfully at the insistence of my husband and sister I went to the ER at University Hospital (it was a slow night for them, thank goodness, and I got right in) I was asked about 10 times if I was up to day on my Tetanus shot--which I can't remember. How do people keep track of those things anyway? After the doctor and a student had a "teaching moment" about my hand (which seemed to last forever as they poked and prodded my hand and using terms I couldn't understand) I finally was hooked up to some Morphine and sweet bliss took over. The nurse cleaned and bandaged me up and I was even visited by doctors from the "burn unit" with instructions to come and visit them in a few days. With a prescription of Oxicodone in my hand off I went with instructions to keep the medicine going and I will be a happy person....well, at least a pain free person. I'm not sure why people enjoy this foggy, eye-swimming feeling but I'll take the pain free part.

I am so grateful that our home teacher could come over with a yummy plate of cookies and the priesthood to help Devin give me a blessing. I know that will make a difference in my healing. We also had an amazing dinner brought over by the McIntosh's. It was so good! And we are devouring the cookies that my visiting teacher brought! Thanks Kristin! I am feeling very loved.

Day 2
The nurse had this amazing gauze soaked in vaseline which made up the first layer covering my skin. I was so afraid it had stuck to the wound, but it didn't! The outer layer is a loosely knitted gauze lightly wrapped around my hand. I was very curious to see what the wound would look like the second day. After taking it all off, I was amazed to see the big blister that had formed. We were told not to pop any blisters since that would encourage infection to enter; but as skin gets loose we were to cut it off. Thankfully, Devin is helping me with this whole process. As soon as the air hit the raw, opened burn, the stinging began. So we took a quick picture, cleaned it up and wrapped my hand trying to repeat what the nurse had done. Not as good as she did, but it works.