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Day 21 -- Duh

Name one dumb thing you did today.


Again, this topic was not from the random generator. This was wholly inspired by my constant drift toward klutziness. I will spare you most of the ridiculous details. Long story short, I burned the top of my thumb on the broiler coil of my oven. My flesh sizzled. It smoked. A dismal brown stripe immediately appeared along the length of my thumb.

I am not sure whether I was just in shock or whether it was truly not a big deal, but I was in a calm enough frame of mind to turn off the oven and find the aloe ointment before having Tim do the thing we're not to do: search the Net. A quick google found descriptions of first, second, and third degree burns.

When we read the symptoms of third-degree burns often included a brown-colored wound and lack of pain, I began to panic. This nasty, crispy-looking burn had yet to hurt, which seemed very strange. I'd had altercations with curling irons before that had me in tears within seconds.

I called the after-hours doctor line to talk to a nurse. I explained my situation. She quickly told me to come in and they'd look at it.

I'm glad the hospital's only 5 minutes away, because as soon as I got there, she took one look at it and sent me on my way. I'm glad it was nothing, but I felt very silly with my little old thumb blister (she told me it, indeed, would blister before it got better) when people with whole-body burns were lying in beds in that unit, fighting for their lives.

Just as we pulled out of the parking ramp, the pain started to hit. It's now puffing up and throbbing. Guess I have the draining pus phase to look forward to. Joy.

Henry keeps telling me, "I'm really sorry that you had to burn your hand on such a special weekend as Mother's Day." Me too. Ironically, I was broiling "falafel" patties...and now I "feelawful."

I did learn an important lesson (besides "Don't stick your bare skin on an oven coil. Derrrr.) from this little trip to the hospital. If you ever hurt yourself on a weekend, hope for a burn. You get to skip the hours-long wait in the ER and go straight to the BURN UNIT.

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