What burning my arm taught me:
- It doesn’t hurt as much as you think it will.
- But it does get worse than it looks initially.
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EVERYBODY asks you what happened, and then every time you see them afterwards, how your arm’s doing. I’ve started telling an alternative version about trying to break up a fight between two of my suitors, because the truth (hot frypan and hot oil) is, frankly, incredibly mundane.
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EVERYBODY has an opinion on how you should treat your wound, backed up by a personal anecdote about the time they or a friend or family member got burnt cooking. Everything from aloe vera to cooking oil to car oil to lemon to onion to the albumen of an egg to nothing at all. To the point where they unwillingly make you feel guilty about doing or not doing something a certain way.
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I’m not as strong-willed as I’d thought or hoped. I knew the right thing to do was run it under cold water for 20 minutes, but let my colleague haul me from the tap, scold me for wetting my arm, and apply more cooking oil which only made it worse. I knew that but put my own health and well-being at risk rather than arguing about it.
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I take my health for granted. I’m used to having good health and only suffering very minor injuries. And perhaps that’s why I didn’t stand my ground about treating it with cold water rather than oil. I rang the team doctor the day it happened, to get advice about how to treat it, but I didn’t bother going to see him so he could take a look at it until three days later.
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It’s nice to have people pray for you – even though I know God has already blessed me with a healthy body that heals well, and it’s not really a huge deal compared to the myriad of other injuries you can have.
