I was doing so well. I had all these deadlines (Twist submission, Faux Russian scarf, etc), and I was plugging away, and I even had a workable schedule. The plan was to finish one half-pattern repeat of the Russian today, the last one tomorrow, plus the last of the edging. Yarn for the Twist submission should be showing up Monday or Tuesday (I got beads yesterday, you can all just wonder about that), so I'd literally finish the scarf and start on the gauge swatches with nary a hitch. If there was a bit of a delay, I could use the time to sketch and chart.
Such a nice plan.
Then I burned myself.
The husbeast wanted the last of the perogis, so I told him to put on a pot of water at medium; by the time it heated I'd be ready to cook. He put the pot on the back burner, brain farted, and turned on the FRONT BURNER. And then we both ignored it for half an hour. While I was kind of kicking around in the kitchen later, getting ready, I put a heavy aluminum (aluminum transfers heat very well, damn it) cookie sheet on that front burner that had been on for half an hour, that neither one of us knew about.
Then I put my right (bad, nerve-damaged, with less sensation) hand on it.
Thankfully, my fingers hit first, rather than my whole hand, and for once, the message got through the nerve damage before the rest of my palm went down (I'm thinking the new nerve damage drug, Lyrica, is responsible for this). Unfortunately, the cookie sheet was REALLY FUCKING HOT, so even a millisecond or three of contact was enough to fuck me up.
The upshot: The tips of my middle three (index, middle, and ring) fingers are burned almost entirely, to the point of blistering.
No idea how this is going to affect my knitting. Since I knit Continental, I carry the yarn in my left (good) hand, but most of the needle movement is done with the right. Which obviously is going to be a problem. There's little pain, but because of the blistering I've got almost no feeling in them.
At the least, this is going to slow me down significantly.
On the other hand, if I lose my fingerprints, I could turn to a life of crime. (Ha.)
And the husbeast, eating the last of the dud perogis made with the weird/nasty dough, has commented "You're right... these suck." Then he ate another.
A fine, fine day.
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11 comments:
Ouch! Hope it heals soon - I have heard another use for lavender, lavender water is very good for healing burns. Not sure how accurate that is, but it might help.
I did something very similar while cooking my first Thanksgiving for the in-laws. It sucks.
Booze helps tremendously - not with the knitting but with the throbbing fingertips.
I burned all of my finger tips once and it was no fun. Hope they heal soon.
Verification word:
fookedat :-)
If you have an aloe vera plant, snip off a bit of the leaf spike, make a slit through the skin on one side, and pry/push it open so the outer skin is flat. Bandage it on your burn with the inner gooey side on the burn. leave it there for 12-24 hours, and when you unwrap the bandages you'll see the outer skin of the plant laying there like a soggy piece of paper. The gooey inside will have all been absorbed by your burned skin, which will be well on the way to healing - and at a much faster pace than without the aloe goo.
I have used this on myself, on friends, and on family, including children. Works great. I will hedge and say if you have some freaky allergy to aloe it might not work, but otherwise, it's a great natural burn dressing.
Good luck healing! Here is what the nurse's office does for glassblowing burns (the molten glass is over 2000 degrees F, the metal pipe I touched with the entire palm of my hand was at least several hundred degrees F):
- soak the burned area in water for 30 minutes. A full 30 minutes is needed to properly hydrate the tissue. (It might be too late for this now, but you can try).
- coat the burn with silver sulfadene cream. Somehow it is magic.
- bandage the burned area completely (with gauze or whatever), because with a bad burn, the movement of molecules of air on the burn are painful, so bandaging makes it much more comfortable. [Of course depending on your pre-existing nerve damage this might not be needed.]
My burn initially hurt so much that I couldn't think straight to continue my glassblowing session (safety issue, among other things).
By the end of the day, my hand felt so much better that I could remove the bandaging.
Aloe Vera is also useful with sunburns so may help. My little daughter used a cut leaf of aloe vera like a rubber stamp on her sunburn leg, and the next day the sunburn was gone only where the aloe goo touched her skin.
Oh.. I'm so, so sorry! Burns hurt so much! Sure glad the Lyrica is helping....as I'm sure it could have been so much worse. Please take care.
Oh, oh, oh. I'm so sorry. But I do love how you make lemonade (a life of crime)from lemons (burns). I hope it doesn't hurt; maybe nerve damage has its advantages?
I'm also amazed at all the cures people wrote in! What a way to learn new things. (What kind of stove do you have that you wouldn't notice a lit burner? Maybe you should trade it in for a more obvious one...like, right this minute.)
Ooooh! I hope your fingers heal soon! (I wish I'd known all these burn remedies when I stuck my finger in the carmel I was making for carmel custard, trying to fish out the spoon I dropped!) I'd say the husbeast can make his own pierogies from now on.
Verification word: lamoista ;-)
Over here you can get cream called Silvozine which is probably the same stuff as Lethe's Silver sulfadene cream. My brother needed it when he leant on the ceramic stove top at mum's when he was 2. He had blistering on all pads and fingertips of his left hand and ended up with no scarring at all. Magic stuff. Good luck with finding it or something similar.
Must be the men. The Husband left the burner on under the cast-iron grill tonight. If I hadn't turned out the light over the stove we would be looking for a place to live. Second (third?) the aloe vera. I burned my arm with the steam iron (it was my arm or the baby's head, ironing linen for the county fair, blue ribbon!) and used aloe. No scar and I scar easily.
If we wind up in adjoining cells we may have to find something other that tatting. The end of the shuttle may be considered a weapon (Auntie number 5 tatted), think they'll let us have clay?
Owie owie owie owiw!!! Aloe w/lidocain--I did something similar with a pancake griddle a couple of years ago... the aloe/w/lidocane (green goop) did wonders!
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