Trepidation

Our kitchen

1. 9pm Friday night. I was in the middle of a hectic night at work, when I get a panicked phone call from my girlfriend. “I need you to come home. The kitchen’s on fire, and I’ve burnt myself….”

2. I think I had set the record for the highest number of traffic violations on one trip. Needless to say, I wasn’t holding back. When I got home the place was filled with smoke, and she was in the bathroom with her hand under the tap. The kitchen was a mess — there was the pan and oil all over the floor, the smoke had gotten everywhere and deposited a layer of ash all over the house, from the bookshelf to the computers (my PowerBook had black spots all over it). I checked to make sure nothing was still burning, quickly surveyed the damage, and walked into the bathroom to sneak a peek at the burn. Ohhh, I wish I hadn’t. Her left had was bright red, except for the burn with was totally white, as if it had been bleached. The white skin had absorbed the water flowing over it, and is resembling chicken skin. I’m pretty good with my own injuries, but I’m terrible with others — I could feel bile rising from just a short peek. I got a bucket, filled it with water for her hand and put her in the car to take her to hospital.

3. We went to Sydney Hospital which was the closest to where we live. It’s also relatively quiet (in the same way a race car is quiet next to jumbo jet) and we manage to get the triage nurse to look at it as soon as we walked in. She took one look, took our details, and we were admitted straight away. What we didn’t know was that Sydney Hospital doesn’t have a burns unit, and the doctors there aren’t very good with burns victims. Calls are made to Concord Hospital to the Plastic Surgeon on duty. Morphine was administered, the talking continued, words like “skin graft” floated by. My skin was crawling just thinking about it — in fact it would almost have been a relief if the tables were reversed, then at least I know how much it hurts rather than having to imagine it.

4. The doctor set us up with an appointment at Concord Hospital the next morning at 8.30. She got pain killers and sleeping pills, the morphine has kicked in, and I took her home to bed. Then I really got a chance to look at the damage. The oil was everywhere, it singed the dirty clothes in the laundry (which is next to our kitchen), it covered the walls and the floor, the bench. The cupboards above the stove were black with the oil smoke, but on closer inspection nothing very much was burnt. Most of the black soot has since been cleaned, the wood underneath were perfectly fine. Nothing inside the cupboards were damaged, nor were the tiles on the wall. I couldn’t believe how lucky my girlfriend was — only her hand got burnt, and the kitchen was only slightly damaged. If the cupboard or any of the clothes caught alight it would’ve been so much worse.

5. The next morning we drove to Concord Hospital for the diagnosis. We met with the Plastic Surgeon that took the phone call (who I thought looked remarkably like Colin Firth — down to the tone of voice if not the accent), who was pleasantly surprised that it did not look as bad as it had sounded over the phone the previous night. There was still a chance that a skin graft was needed, but we won’t know for sure for another few days. By this time the skin had blistered, so it looked as if a scale model of the Hindenburg had anchored on her finger (with the same pale chicken-skin look). The nurses laced the blister (which promptly let go of it’s liquid contents with gusto) and applied the dressing. The bile rose and was squelched. Some of us are just not conditioned to professional health care.

6. Yet another appointment was scheduled, for Monday, this time to remove the dead skin and have a look below and see how deep the burn went. The weekend went, and Monday came, and this time the news was better. Skin graft may still be needed, the decision would be made after Easter, but it seems less likely. The dressing will need to be changed every two days for the next week until the next Appointment, and aftercare at the hospital was arranged. And since we will be away over the Easter long weekend, I will have to change her dressing at least once (possibly twice, depending on whether the Nurse will let us drive down on the Thursday or the Friday). Given my squeamishness, I am not looking forward to the prospect of playing with a hunk of half cooked human flesh. Must. Repress. Bile.

7. That’s all we know for now. She may or may not need a skin graft, but all the signs are positive. It’ll be another week before we have more information. In the meantime, it’s takeaway and painkillers, sticky floors and sooty books.

UPDATE: Click here for updates on her condition.

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