A Burning Sensation

Well I had quite an experience last night. You may not really be able to tell but I burned the shit out of my left hand. I was making a fabulous Southern Sunday Supper and part of the menu was slow-baked pork loin ribs finished with barbecue sauce. Not let me say right here that they were quite possibly the tenderest, most delicious ribs I've ever personally eaten. But, in the process of the finishing-off process, I took the sheet pan that the ribs were on out from under the broiler to brush on more barbecue sauce and instead of reaching for the edge of the counter which was way too close to the edge of the pan (my fault), I grabbed the pan and it was hot as hell. 
I managed to jerk my hand back so fast that my fingers weren't even involved. So I didn't grasp it, thank goodness. But I seared that area you can see in the picture right nicely. 
I knew that I'd fucked up royally. You know how sometimes when you fall or when you hit your head on something or whatever, and you just KNOW you've done something really not good to your body? 
Well, that was me last night. 

I immediately went and got an ice cube and grasped it thinking that maybe, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Ice is my go-to for burns mainly because it is so instantly pain-relieving. I managed to finish making supper with one hand, my burned one wrapped in a towel-wrapped ice bag, and held my hand in a bowl of ice water while I was still eating. That was all fine but even a few seconds without the ice resulted in severe pain. Burns just hurt. 
I sent Mr. Moon out to that overgrown aloe patch and had him bring me in a leaf that I sliced the saw-like edges off of and then split to get the goo and I applied that to the area frequently. You're not supposed to use ice on burns because that, too, can damage the skin. However, I completely ignored that figuring that since the ice was in a plastic bag and not directly on my skin I probably was not in danger of frostbite.

The pain remained extremely intense for about four hours. I kept checking it to see if it was blistering and by all rights, it surely should have. But it never did. I continued the aloe and ice all that time and finally, about 12:30 the pain abated enough that I thought I could sleep. But before I turned out the light, I spread some comfrey ointment on it that Liz Sparks had made and given me a few years ago and that was it for the pain. I mean, it was like a miracle. 

I am so grateful. It could have been so much worse.

The whole incident reminded me of a time I burned that same hand as a child. 

See that little pit? That's the scar I have from when that happened. I was home alone because my mother had some sort of meeting or gathering after work and I was in the kitchen and thought I felt something warm near the stove and proceeded to put my hand on the burner which my mother had accidently left on low after she took her percolator coffee pot off of it that morning before we all left for school.  
I surely learned a lesson that afternoon about not testing burners to see if they're on by touching them. 

But the thing was, Mama wasn't home. My grandparents who lived right behind us were at their house so I ran to get help from them. My hand was already in terrible pain at that point and I was probably in a bit of shock. I did not, at that time, know the wonders of ice and of course we only had the ice that we made in those horrible aluminum ice trays with the handle that you pulled to release the cubes and there was no way I could do that with one hand. So to Granny's I went. 
Poor woman. She didn't know what to do for me either so she got out her favorite all-purpose remedy which was a little green bottle of Campho-Phenique. It looked like this. 

They still make the stuff and it's mostly used to treat cold sores and bug bites. It does indeed have camphor in it which can have a soothing, cooling effect on those things. It also has or had carbolic acid in it which was probably where the antiseptic part came in. And although it was labeled as pain-relieving, it did not relieve the pain of a very severe second-degree burn on a little girl's hand. In fact, it made it much worse. 
Now that burn did blister. And what I remember is the agony I was in for hours. We went to the Anchor restaurant that night to get clam chowder and a "hamburg" as Granny called it for our supper. My brother, my grandparents and me. I recall sticking my hand out of the window of Granddaddy's Rambler on our way to the restaurant to let the rushing air cool my hand and later on, in the restaurant, holding my glass of ice water to try and relieve the pain. 

So last night, when I burned that same hand, the memories came rushing back and I remembered the way my skin somehow magically bubbled and turned into translucent blisters that seemed a part of me and yet not a part of me. I do not remember what happened when my mother got home. Did she take me to see her good friend, our pediatrician, Dr. Bob the next day? I doubt it. Did she put something else on the burn? I do not know. In those days, home first aid consisted of mainly iodine or Mercurochrome and Bandaids. And Campho-Phenique. All I know is that I still have that tiny scar and that today I keep looking at my palm to wonder at the fact that there are no blisters there. Perhaps the ice or the aloe did the trick or perhaps it isn't as bad a burn or maybe my skin is much tougher and thicker now after a lifetime of use than it was when I was eight years old.

But once again, I have learned yet another lesson which is to be even more careful than I usually am in the kitchen which is probably the most dangerous room in the house with its blades and its glass and its variety of heating elements. Not to mention things like hot oil and boiling water. The kitchen'll kill you if you don't watch out. 

Guess what I bought today?

I did not pick beans today, thinking to give the plants time to mature a little and when I went outside to dump the compost this morning I gave the vines a quick inspection and let us just say that tomorrow I am going to need the big basket. 

Here we go! 

Be safe, y'all. Look before you grab. 

Love...Ms. Moon