The burn saga

Warning: This post gets a bit gross, you may want to skip it.


Monday, the 14th of January, at dinnertime, I decided to make Creamy rice, chicken and spinach I vary that recipe slightly, I make regular rice with it, the not instant kind. My stove has 4 burners, the largest one, the right front has stopped working so I've taken to doing most of the cooking on the front left one. That one is very near the sink. That area of the kitchen is tiny. As my rice was bubbling away nicely, steam escaping through a gap between pot and lid, I decided I needed to use the sink for something. I don't even remember what. But as I reached into the sink, my right arm grazed the rice pot in the exact place the steam was escaping.

OW!

At first it didn't hurt especially much, yes it hurt some but no worse than any other burn. I splashed some water on it and continued cooking. It was after dinner with it beginning to hurt more and more that I begin to think something was up. I kept it cool and moist, cause that's the only way it was tolerable and I regretted having killed the aloe plant.

The next morning it was tender and uncomfortable but it didn't hurt quiet so much so I carried on. That evening it started to blister. The whole thing became a blister. The burn is about the size of a quarter, by the way. I was worried about the blister popping while I slept, but I was afraid to cover it. Well it did pop in my sleep.

On to Wednesday. The popped blister skin was laying flat next to the burned skin. It didn't hurt terribly much. The deflated skin started to fill up with blister goo again and since it was stretched from being filled before it poked way out.

This is where I became stupid.

I popped it on purpose. Ya know the body makes blisters for a reason. It began to hurt. So to further my stupidity when the loose skin started to fill up with blister goo a third time I pulled the dead skin off.

It throbbed, my whole arm was one big stinging pulse of pain. Over the next 3 days the burn became a shiny red spot in the middle of a nice swelled patch on my arm. I couldn't touch my arm anywhere between elbow and wrist. The burn kept me up at night, kept me from wearing long sleeves, kept me from knitting, surfing the web or even sitting comfortably on the couch. It was absolute hell!

Fast forward to Sunday morning. I wake up and the burn is starting to scab. AND it's stopped hurting as much. The swelling around the burn has gone down and I can use my arm again. By Monday I can touch the burn without agony and I can flex and unflex my elbow without pain. Today it still hurts if I try to lean on it, but otherwise it's fine. It's completely covered by a scab and it itches like crazy but it hardly hurts at all. I am so lucky it didn't become infected along the way.

So my advice for you . . .
Steam is hot, stay the hell away from it!
Don't be a dumb ass, if you're body says you need a blister, you need a blister!

Pin It