I haz a Woond!

[desperance]

Ouchie. I spent the second half of last night's dinner party with my hand in a jug of cold water. Which kept heating up, faster than physics should allow; if I hadn't kept changing it for fresh, I think it would've ended up steaming.

See, what I did, first I forgot to serve the pork scratchings with the broccoli dish. Remembered them just as I was clearing plates. Went to get them out of the oven, putting on my heatproof gauntlet which I love. Took the dish out of the oven, put it on the counter, closed the oven, picked the dish up.

With, um, the other hand.

I have burned the thumb and two fingers, more badly than I can remember burning myself since I was a teenager. It stayed actively hot for hours. It's okay this morning, except that the skin feels like it has a layer of wax all over it; I suspect I'm going to lose some skin here. Sigh.

Oh, and I cut the top off my other thumb earlier, slicing the pork rinds. Those damn scratchings, they were just out to get me, coming and going...

Comments

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Ow! Sympathetic noises from here.

(My mum insists that for burns you put soap on them, which I suppose makes some kind of sense if it's a tiny burn and you make lots of watery soapy liquid. Not a perfect solution but in that case it's vaguely not harmful. However, I have had to fight her off when I've had the blistered skin level of burn and she wants to attack me with a bar of dry soap, that is not fun.)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

oh AUGH.

Aloe vera. And vitamin E oil. Meep. Poor Chaz! :(

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Poor Chaz. Much sympathy.

Next time (not that there will be a next time)can I recommend holding it under running cold water for at least 10 minutes by the clock? Your hand will heat up the cold water really quickly otherwise. Theoretically you should hold it under running cold water until it stops hurting. If it "dries itself" as soon as you remove it from the water, your skin is still cooking and should be put back under again. Of course, that can make it difficult to continue having a dinner party, so compromise for your own levels of pain/ sociability/ hunger.

[julesjones]

Ouch. And hugs.

As pennski says, running cold water, and ten minutes *by* *the* *clock*. I emphasise this because having stood over people in the first aid room at work, making them do this, ten minutes is an incredibly long time and people think they've done ten minutes when it's about three.

Failing that, yes, large jug of cold water, repeatedly changed for fresh. And an ice pack at night, so that you've got something cool to put your hand on when you're trying to sleep.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

With, um, the other hand.

I did a similar thing with a brazing rod doing metalwork at school. I touched one end and thought "wow, that's really hot. I should pick it up by the other end". Unfortunately the other end was the actual end I'd been brazing with, got a nasty burn on two fingers, and after lunch that day had to do an O level mock (which funnily enough I failed).

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

If it "dries itself" as soon as you remove it from the water, your skin is still cooking

*shudder*

That's possibly the most disturbing thing I've heard in ages.

[kazdreamer.livejournal.com]

If there's ever a next time... (I hope not!)... try bicarbonatae of soda mixed with water to make a paste. Slap that on the burns and allow to harden. It works brilliantly for taking the heat out. (I learned this the hard way some years ago when I spilled boiling water on my hand, and the first-aider at my work did this for me.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I did keep going back to the running water, for perhaps the first ten minutes. Only I did have guests to feed, and didn't want to worry them unduly, so I was in and out, and a little bit "it can't still be hurting, it just can't..." Except that it all too clearly was, so in the end I compromised with the jug of water at the table. Not as effective, I know, but at least it meant people could eat.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Coo. Not heard of that. Thank you...

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

Now that it's over, you might want to check into ways to make sure that if you lose the skin your fingers don't scar to where they are hard to use.

And good lord man, focus. You beat yourself up more than the cats do.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Sympathies.

[julesjones]

And in fact, a trip to Casualty might not go amiss. Burns to your fingertips are not a light matter, and they tend to have better quality dressings that will promote healing.

Let's just say that from what you describe, if I'd been called to that as a First Aider at work, it would have been "You *will* go to the Medical Centre a couple of miles away sometime today to have this treated by the doctor", though not quite at the "You will go *now* even if it means being out of work for an hour" level. (Our official rule of thumb was that anything over an inch across was a mandatory trip to the Medical Centre, below that First Aider's discretion.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

And good lord man, focus. You beat yourself up more than the cats do.

Is true. I have two connected theories to excuse me here: one, that short-sighted people tend to be clumsy (and especially short-sighted people who wear glasses rather than contacts: we have two different perimeters to our vision, and the margin between the two is dangerous territory); and two, that new glasses emphasise the fact. The world may be sharper, but it is altered in shape; small wonder if my relationship to it is a little shifty for a while.

[kazdreamer.livejournal.com]

You should still run it under water first... then the bicarb.

Hope it heals quickly. Burns are horrible!

[(Anonymous)]

Well speaking as one of last night's guests, I can honestly say that the wound impinged very little on our appreciation of the evening - indeed, I'm beginning to feel pretty damn guilty as I read the account of all we should have done... Next time, I'll let Peg hold back the cats while I coat Chaz liberally in a thick Bicarb paste, setting this to crisp lightly at the bottom of a low oven - no, wait, that sort of attitude really isn't very helpful!

[halspacejock.livejournal.com]

Ow. Heal quickly.

You've just reminded me of a self-inflicted wound or two I picked up at Christmas.

First I used the oven gloves to move a large pot full of warm-ish water, which slopped about and splashed the gloves a little. Then I used the same gloves to move a tray full 'o' Turkey, at about 280 degrees C.

By the time I got to the table copious quantities of steam from the wet patches on the gloves had done very interesting things to my hands.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. The story in professional kitchens is that everybody does that once, and once only.

The way I'm going, I expect it to become my regular habit...

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I've gotten awfully behind in reading my LJ this week. I hope you feel better now, and that the pork scratchings have got their comeuppance. :-)