Tl;dr version: I am ok. 😅
Yesterday, I put a mug in the microwave and I forgot that we have one mug that for some reason gets very, very hot. My husband once burned his fingers on this mug and ended up with a very bad second degree burn with blisters that took a pretty long time to heal.
I grabbed this mug to microwave milk. (Bad choice)
When I went to take it out of the microwave, I wasn’t paying attention to what mug it was, so I grabbed it by the handle like normal. Because it was full, it weighed down on my fingers and was blisteringly hot. I immediately realized what mug it was and I could tell I was getting very very burned.
I didn’t want to drop the mug because that would splatter hot milk everywhere, burn me and probably break the cup. So I set it down as quickly as I could and right away I was terrified because I knew this was going to be bad, possibly on three places across the thumb, index and middle fingers of my right hand. That whole area was already turning red all over and I couldn’t really tell where the worst spots where.
Mr. SK was home, so while I ran my hand under the kitchen faucet — which was clearly not cold enough — I had him get ice water from the fridge and put it in a medium sized bowl. I plunged my hand into that (which, if you’ve put your hand in ice water, you know it’s very uncomfortable). I had Mr SK Google to confirm this was a good thing to do, and then had him set a timer for 30 minutes.
I stayed with my hand submerged in the water, periodically adding more ice water (and once changing the water completely) to keep it as cold as I could tolerate.
By the time 30 minutes was up, my hand was so numb I couldn’t tell how bad it was. As the numbness started to wear off, it stared to hurt but I could also see that the size of each burn mark seemed much smaller than when I started.
Long story short, this morning, I only have one small spot that looks like it might become a blister and the rest is just little shiny pink patches. No problem moving my fingers in any way.
Because of how hot the mug was (and based on what I read about burns yesterday), I am certain this would be much, much worse had I not done the ice water bath for that extended 30 minute session.
So here’s your PSA: if you ever burn your hand/fingers, running it under tap water for a minute or so will not cut it. You can most likely prevent it from becoming a bad burn by aggressively icing it for an extended time, think 20-30 minutes. I used ice water (rather than actual ice) because the spots that were burned were on three different fingers and different sides so it would have been close to impossible to get them all covered by an ice pack (or even a packet of frozen peas or something). Also I think ice water makes it safer, because it’s easier to avoid over-icing and ending up with an ice burn.
Thank you if you read this far! 😆 I am always a little paranoid about any kind of cut or other injury to my hands, so that 30 minutes waiting to see how with my fingers would be after the ice bath was a very long 30 minutes. But as they say, all’s well that ends well!
Happy playing y’all!
