So here are the pictures. Proof of my failed reflexes and of Nugget's trooper-ness through all of this. Took these yesterday, and he'd gotten burned on Thursday night. This one's from the top:
View from the side.
Bless his heart, he's so brave every time I have to change the dressings. If I can distract him with the camera (he likes to thumb through the 'review' feature and look at all the pictures already on the camera), Branden only has to hold him down through about half of the process (the cleaning, re-ointmenting is the worst). I did end up throwing the curling iron out. He's definitely doing better with all of this than his mom.
Right now I am grateful for several things. First thing - adrenaline. Why? It hijacks every other synapse in the brain but 'action'. Second - pure melalueca oil, non-stick Telfa bandages, Coban, and I thank GOD for an aunt and grandmother guardian angels that have faster hands than I do.
I was curling my hair before a family picnic in Kaysville. I finished. I turned the iron off. I didn't even have time to move the cord out of my baby's reach when his curiosity spurned him to pull on it and the iron caught him down the right leg. I've heard that scream before, when he had those horrid sores and pressure wounds from his clubfoot braces, and tonight I heard it again. At first Branden and I couldn't see where it had caught him, and then when I turned him around to check his face, we saw his knee. The iron was so hot still that where it touched him first, it took the skin with it right away, and where it hit him second blistered instantaneously. I had Branden hold him to keep his hands away from it while I dumped out my medicine drawer, scrabbling, PRAYING that I could find some melalueca oil...I wasn't even sure I had any in the house. Found some. Doused a cotton ball, soaked his leg with it, drenched a Telfa bandage and slapped that on the burns, then wrapped it all with coban to keep it on and keep his leg clean. I had time enough to grab a shirt (forget the bra) and the diaper bag before we ran out the house and up the ER.
My little Nugget was SO brave. The oil numbed him enough to calm him down on the drive, and he held my hand while I sat in the backseat with him, eating his cherry puffs and drinking his milk from his sippy cup and playing with his toes. He was even smiling and jabbering as we waited a few minutes in the waiting room. They're second degree burns. Sooo the doctor and nurse put some topical lidacaine on, gave him some num-nums (ibuprofen, he likes it), and let it all peak before they came back and had to debride the skin away. THAT was not cool. He screamed...but the fact that there were no tears associated with it was the dead giveaway with him that he wasn't actually in pain, he was just PISSED as all get out. When they were done and had him wrapped up again, he sat up and started grinning, jabbering, eating more puffs. And as we walked out about 90 minutes after arriving, he told the nurse 'thank-you' (he signs it), and just made the whole nurse's station smile. He didn't cry a bit on the drive home, just snugged his blanket. When we got home I wiped him down with a warm washrag, slathered his favorite lotion on his arms and chest, and we had a bottle and he went right to sleep.
I know he's okay, really...I've had 2nd degree sunburns before, I know they heal and they heal without issues...But the guilt. My word, the guilt. The cruel irony....I curl my hair about twice a year, if even that. I thought tonight it would be fun to have it wavy, look good since I just got it colored. I'm tempted to throw my iron out now, I get sick just looking at it. I know it could have been so much worse....he could have grabbed the barrel with his hand, it could have rolled down his face or his chest, but it didn't. It got the top of his right knee only, where it won't crease in a joint, he won't sleep on it, I can keep him in onesies or shorts for sleep so it won't rub on anything, and his clubfoot braces will keep his legs apart. It'll sting tomorrow, but I know he'll be fine. Now if I could just get rid of my guilt as quickly or as easily....why does your children's growing up have to be so hard on the parents?
