One Angry Mommy: Second Degree Burn and Recovery

My mommy had a horrible accident during her visit from Toronto this holiday. Although it was a scary and extremely painful event (especially for her), we all learned a lot from this experience so I wanted to share what we learned and hopefully our recovery progress will give hope to others going through something like this.

Warning: There are explicit images of the burn below. Please proceed at your own discretion.

The accident: I was heating up oil on the stove in a shallow non-stick pan and had forgotten about it. The oil started smoking and when my mom saw it, her first reaction was to remove the pan as soon as possible, not realizing there was hot oil in the pan. She grabbed the pan with her left hand and the oil sloshed over the sides and covered her whole hand.

Immediately following the accident: We quickly ran her hand under cool water, and then submerged it in a bucket of ice water. DO NOT PUT ICE DIRECTLY ON BURN! We later learned that putting ice directly on burn will cause a person's body to become too cold and further more cause damage (see Mayo Clinic site). So it was not a good idea to submerge her hand in ice water. Only run your burn under cool water to further stop the "cooking".

Small blisters began forming immediately on her forefinger, which looked like it was the most severe area. We later found that it wasn't; the most severe burn area was the centre of her hand. The skin turned dark. We applied aloe vera gel but it didn't help with the pain. After several suggestions from concerned relatives, we applied diaper rash cream on her whole left hand. It seemed to help with the pain. She also took Motrin for pain and inflammation.

Putting diaper rash cream on the burn seemed like a good idea at the time, since we didn't have anything else to ease the pain. My mom didn't want to see a doctor immediately and felt confident we could handle the treatment ourselves. I had googled diaper rash cream's effect on burns and some sites agreed that the zinc oxide does help. Later we'll find out from the doctor that it doesn't really help with such severe burn, and the reason why she felt better initially was because she couldn't really feel her hand anymore. The pain receptors were just dull.

Progress and treatment:

Day 1: The first day after her burn a big blister formed. She continued to cover the whole area with diaper rash cream. She was afraid of popping the blister, but otherwise did not feel that the pain was intolerable.

Day 2: Blister got even bigger. It hurt a little and felt tight. We (the family) convinced her to go to Urgent Care and the doctor there suggested that we remove the blister and the liquid inside. He confirmed that it was second degree burn. Now, there are different schools of thoughts when it comes to this; some recommend removing the blister and liquid and cleaning the burn surface, while others feel it's better to not remove the blister and if required, just cut a little hole in the skin to drain out the liquid. It just so happened that the doctor we saw at Urgent Care recommended that the blister be removed. We agreed, since my mom was afraid that she might pop it accidentally and it was feeling uncomfortable.

The doctor first cut a little slit in the skin and drained the liquid that formed instead. The pus -- or liquid, which sounds less icky -- was a yellowish substance. Immediately upon draining, my mom felt better because the tension was removed. He cut off the now flappy skin and rinsed the wound with some distilled water (I think it was distilled water ... sorry, I forgot!). He then applied a good coat of silvadene ointment (silver sulfadiazine) and showed us how to wrap the wound. My mom was told to air out the wound in the mornings when she changed her bandage and apply silver sulfadiazine.

Day 3: We went back to Urgent Care for a checkup and the doctor said it looked like it was healing fine and we should continue what we were doing. We must watch out for symptoms like fever, extreme redness and pain which meant possible infection.

Day 4: Airing out the wound was extremely painful for my mom. The doctor recommended airing out for 2 hours, but she did it for one. She had been (and is) so brave and calm during this whole charade, and I am so proud of her. I felt really helpless during this time because I couldn't do much to ease her pain and discomfort. Also, I felt I was partly responsible since I was the one who forgot about the oil. If only I had told her I was heating oil ... if only ... if only ...

Day 5: Forefinger was redder than ever. The skin around burn continued to peel.

Day 8: Skin continued to peel and turns redder when it was exposed to air.

Day 10: We decided to visit a dermatologist to seek specialist advice. The one we saw had such a bad attitude I almost walked out. Thankfully, he actually knew what he was doing so it wasn't an entire waste of money. He prescribed antibiotics because he noticed some infection in the centre of her hand. He also told us to use hydrogen peroxide to rinse the wound if my mom can handle the pain. The only good thing that came out of this visit, other than him noticing the infection, was that he told my mom she didn't have to air out her wound. Actually, he's in the "Why the hell would you remove a perfectly fine blister? You just made your recovery harder!" camp. Since airing out was so painful for my mom, she was happy not to do it.

Day 11: This was a painful day for mommy. I think her hand had recovered enough to feel pain and so she felt throbbing pain throughout the day. She was still in relatively good mood despite the pain and I love her for it. Again, she is so brave.

Day 12: Finally! Her wound is noticeably better and the skin around the wound didn't hurt when she touched it. The raw part of the skin had decreased too.

Day 15: The pain had eased further.

Day 21: By this time, she had flown back to Toronto with my dad and had seen her own doctor. The doctor confirmed that she was recovering well. Her skin was growing back, albeit slowly, and the surrounding skin can now be touched without any pain. The centre was still a little raw but she can move her fingers and a little strength had returned.

Now: My mom can now move her fingers and she tries to use her hand when possible to exercise it. The raw skin has completely healed and she no longer bandages it. There is scarring there of course, and it probably won't completely heal until after a year. She is messaging her hand daily using vitamin E oil to help with the scarring. Scars are just superficial -- the most important thing is that she has her hand back and the accident wasn't more serious. Having said that, I would be sad too to see my hand so changed. When my mom showed Elizabeth her recovered hand, instead of being repelled by the sight she told grandma that her hand was "so pretty" since pink was her favourite colour. This is when I fell further in love with my little big daughter and appreciated the childhood innocence that she exuded.

I think the hardest part for my mom during this whole ordeal was not only the pain itself, but the fact that physically she couldn't do much. My mom is a person who cannot sit and do nothing while others work for her. Since she hurt her hand, she couldn't help with child care or any of the housework (although she still tried ... you'd be surprised at how good she is with many things single handed!). I think mentally it was a struggle for her. She is the one who always helps others and so to be dependent on others was a little embarrassing for her. She didn't want to be a "burden". I thought it was a good chance for her to learn to rely on others and to not work so hard. It was also a good chance to show our appreciation. Like I told my mom, I would take her single handed any day over others with two good hands. I love you mommy!

Burn and recovery images: