Thursday June 30th was just another normal day...Michael got home from work and after dinner he went straight out to work on the remodel some more. He was trying to cut through some 2x4's with the Saw-All. He asked me to get him a longer blade. I brought him the blade and that was that. I went inside and about a minute later Michael asked me for a different blade because the one I gave him wasn't doing the job. I went out to the garage and grab a different blade and then walked over to hand it to him. I was holding the new blade in my right hand and I was making sure that when I handed it to him I didn't stab him with it. Michael had the blade he'd been using for all of a minute in his right hand ready to pass it off to my left hand. He was holding it on the end that was attached to the actual Saw-All. Simultaneously he took the blade from me and I took the blade from him.
The next part happened in just a matter of seconds. First off I realized I was screaming....loudly, but in my mind I didn't know why. It took my brain another second to realize that what I was holding was hot....VERY HOT!!! That's when I threw or dropped the blade to the garage floor. The first thing I did was drop to the floor and put my hand on the concrete in hopes that it would be cool. It wasn't so I ran to our kitchen sink and put my hands on the stainless steel. I've done this before after burning my fingers and it's been great, but this time it wasn't cutting it. I grabbed some ice and put it on the burn and it hurt so bad. Then I went and sat down in the living room basically holding my hand and screaming in pain. The kids were freaked out a little. Michael of course was trying to help. I asked him for my lavender oil. He didn't know where I kept it so I got it myself and then put it on my burn. OH MY LORD!!!! That is the worst thing to do. NEVER EVER put essential oils on a burn right after it's happened. I found out later that the thing with oils is they keep heat in! My hand was basically "cooking" from the burn and I just shut the oven door to keep in the heat in. That's when Michael looked online and read that just running plain old cold water on it was the best thing to do. Not sure why I didn't try this earlier...chalk it up to being in the most intense pain of my life!
After I ran my hand under cold water it really did start to feel better, but the moment I took it out of the water it felt horrible again. I got a bowl and filled it with cold water and then I got a paper towel I could hold onto. My hand felt the best when it was in the position it was when I grabbed the blade.
I tried to contact a nurse friend of mine to find out what to do, but she wasn't responding. This is when I was able to research online and I found out about the oils and then I found out if you burn your hands you should really go to the ER. I was in so much pain at this point and it wasn't getting better I decided we needed to go. Michael had to finish up the electrical stuff he was working on since he had our power off and didn't want to leave the frig and freezer without power for who knows how long. I had also texted my neighbor to see if they could watch the kids, but she wasn't responding either. We decided to just stop by on our way out of the neighborhood to see if they could watch them. They were so willing and so happy that we stopped and asked. Rachael had just been in the shower so she hadn't gotten my texts. It was such a good thing that they were able to watch the kids because at Valley Medical Center they only allow 2 people into the ER rooms and that includes children. So Michael would have been stuck in the waiting area and I wouldn't have had anyone with me.
When it comes to hospitals I really don't like St. Francis so I knew we weren't going there. I love Mary Bridge for the kids, but I didn't necessarily thing that we needed to drive all that way for me. So Valley it was....although it's probably pretty close to the same distance from our house than Tacoma General, but just in the opposite direction. When we got to the ER they took me right back to triage while Michael parked the van. While I was in triage I had to show the nurse my burn and she....having seen all sorts of awful things said, "Oh that's not that bad!" I wanted to smack her! Not that bad lady....my hand feels like it's incinerated! She showed me to my room before Michael was even back from parking the van.
This is was the first picture I took of my hand. It's hard to see, but I had burnt all 5 of my fingers. Blisters were forming on my thumb, pointer and my middle finger.
After a little while the doctor came in and wanted to look at it. He said they would wrap my hand up with burn cream and give me pain meds. The nurse came in with some oxycodone for me to take. After the doctor looked at it I figured I should probably keep my hand out of the water so it wouldn't be all prunie when they wrapped it up. I was amazed that it wasn't hurting immediately. After around 5 minutes though I could feel the pain in my thumb and then it moved to my other fingers. The pain was awful! It was like contractions where it would build up, peak and come down and then start all over again. It was hurting so bad it felt like my fingernails might pop off. The pain actually had me in tears it was so bad. When the nurse came in to wrap my hand I could barely talk and all I said was it felt like I was still holding the burning hot blade. Thankfully this was just about the time the pain meds started to kick in. They didn't stop the pain at first, but they did make my brain woozy so I think it just didn't really matter to me that much.
She rubbed the burn cream on each finger and then wrapped them up lightly. The cream felt really good! After I was discharged we went out to the pharmacy to get my RX for the pain meds and then we were headed home. In all I think we were only at the hospital a little over an hour.
We picked the kids up from Rachael's house and it was off to bed. I went to bed as well, but come to find out oxycodone and me don't really like each other. I was up tossing and turning until sunrise because I couldn't stop twitching and itching. My brain wouldn't stop thinking and the blood in my veins felt like it was traveling at 100 mph.
Prior to going to bed I did wrap my hand in an ACE bandage. Since she put the bandages on so lightly I didn't want them coming off in the night. They said not to change them for 24 hrs so the above picture of me sitting on the couch is pretty much what I did all day on Friday. Michael ended up staying home from work. We didn't know how much I'd be able to do and with me being on high powered pain meds I couldn't drive....we all know how prone to accidents my kids are so odds are they would injure themselves and need to go to the hospital and I wouldn't be able to drive them. For the most part though I was fine....Michael helped me a few times, but he was also able to work a bit on the remodel.
Here's where the story of the 240 power plug for the dryer comes in. Michael was working on this part of the remodel on Friday when he got stuck. That is a lot of power and the wire was aluminum and he was having to change it to copper and everything that he could find on the internet was making him nervous. He finally said....."We're gonna have to hire an electrician!" I'm thinking....great! How much is this going to cost. It's a holiday weekend and we need it done NOW! So I did what everyone does when they need something....I posted it on FB! My friend Amanda ended up responding and saying that her husband could help. We made plans for him to come over on Tuesday after the holiday. A little while later Michael wanted to run to Lowe's to get some things and I needed to go with him because the credit card is in my name. So we all pile into the van and up to Lowe's we went. This is the cool part...while we were at Lowe's in the electrical aisle Michael notices a guy that he thinks is someone he used to play poker with. The guy and him keep eyeballing each other a bit and then the guy finally says, "Are you Mike?" and then Michael says, "Are you Pete?" Ends up that Pete does electrical stuff professionally and he knew exactly what Michael needed to do in order to get the electrical stuff figured out. This was completely and 100% a God thing and I'm so thankful that I burned my hand! I really am! If I hadn't have burned my hand Michael would have gone to work like normal and this encounter wouldn't have happened. God is so awesome! Even though burning my hand sucked big time He worked it out for good!
This is my hand 24 hours after the burn. I was honestly amazed at how well it looked. I was also amazed at how well it felt! I was sure it was going to hurt so bad once I exposed it to air, but it didn't at all. The only thing that was limited was my ability to bend my fingers all the way.
This is my hand 3 days after burning it....all but two of the blistered had healed up. The blister on my thumb was already much much smaller. The one on my middle finger was driving me nuts, but I managed to not pop it until right before bed on the 4th of July. I just couldn't take it anymore. I put Neosporin on a bandage and wrapped it up.
The moral of the story is...don't grab onto a burning hot Saw-All blade!
It was funny a couple days after I burned myself Ella was wanting to go down the slide aka the banister in the foyer of our house. She had asked Zeke to move, but he wouldn't. I told her to just slide down and that Zeke would learn to move out of the way because pain is a wonderful teacher. That's when Jack said, "No it's not!" and then I showed him my hand and said, "Do you think I'm ever going to touch a Saw-All blade that was just in use again? No....because pain is a WONDERFUL teacher!"
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