An Eclectic Mind

Simple: I did a dumb thing.

About a week ago Thurdsay, while making dinner, I burned the first three fingers on my left hand. Since then, the burns have gone through a series of nasty, ugly, painful stages. They’re healing now, though, because I finally started taking care of them.

How I burned them is an example of how relatively smart people can do seriously dumb things. In this case, I’d put about a half cup of water in a 1-cup Pyrex measuring cup and stuck the thing in the microwave to boil. I always boil water in a microwave (if one is available). I wasn’t thinking very well — there was a lot on my mind (as usual) — and hit the Minute Plus button twice. So when I removed the cup of boiling water 2 minutes later, it wasn’t just boiling — it was superheated. As I was moving it from the microwave to the counter top, I added about 1 teaspoon of beef bullion powder. The superheated water immediate boiled over the top of the cup and onto my fingers. I put the cup on the counter, shook the hot water off my hands, and proceeded to clean up the mess I’d made on the countertop, cabinets, and floor.

I didn’t realize how badly I’d been burned until much later. It hurt, of course, but I was busy doing other things and tried hard not to pay attention. Later, I bought some Bactine and kept spraying it down. The skin was red, but I didn’t think much about it.

The next day, my forefinger was blistered and puffy. My middle finger also looked pretty bad. More Bactine. I was volunteering at an equine endurance ride and I was busy. The blisters burst and reformed multiple times. (Hope I’m not grossing you out too much.) It wasn’t until the weekend was over and I really had a chance to clean up and look at my fingers that I realized how badly I’d been burned. My first two fingers probably had second degree burns.

I won’t go into more gross details about the skin on my fingers and the stages it went through. I will say that I finally started putting Neosporin (a triple-antibacterial salve, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it) on my first two fingers and wrapping them in special knuckle bandages. If I’d done that a week ago, I’d be all healed up. But I didn’t, so I’m not.

I’ll probably be almost as good as new within a few days. I suspect, however, that my forefinger will be scarred because of my stupidity. No hand modeling in my future.

Lessons learned: put containers of boiling water on the countertop before adding ingredients.