Adventure I Could've Done Without

Lately I've been telling Gerrit that we need to do some new things and have some adventures so that I can blog about them. I got some adventure last night that I wish I could have avoided, but I'll blog about it anyway. :)

I really love to cook and I like to think I've become pretty adept in the kitchen. But last night while I was not paying attention I got a second-degree burn on my hand. The result wasn't very pretty, so I won't include a picture, but I ended up with blisters on the tips of my three middle fingers, the joints of my index and middle fingers, and the skin between my thumb and index finger. My whole hand was bright red and so swollen that I couldn't even pull off my wedding rings (which, by the way, has never happened before). My sweet husband took me to get some burn cream, gave me advil to reduce the pain and swelling, and then finished doing all the dishes. He let me know that he still loves me, despite my being currently maimed. :)

How did I manage to maim myself? I had made a yummy Mexican dish for dinner and had used two of my big skillets to cook it all on the stove. About an hour after finishing dinner I was doing dishes and the empty skillets were still sitting on the stove. I picked them both up, put them in the sink, changed my mind and picked up the Calphalon skillet by putting my hand underneath it and lifting. It was burning hot. Apparently I had turned off the front stove where my all-clad skillet was, but not the back stove that the Calphalon was on. I had assumed both were off and cool since they had been resting there for while, but the Calphalon skillet had just been sitting empty on a medium-high stove for an hour, and my left hand got the full brunt of its heat. Of course I know little about what to do for burns so went to the Mayo Clinic website and looked at their section about burns; I found that blistering and swelling, along with "severe pain" are signs that the burn is second-degree. All of those conditions fit for my poor hand.

While last night I was sure that I would never be able to use my hand again, it has been feeling much better today so I'm optimistic about recovery :) Still, I think I'll refrain from wishing for more adventure anytime soon!