Burn Update

I was burned by bacon two weeks ago today.  And let me just say that the human body is amazing!  The burn looks really great.  Go my body plus modern medicine!

You don't have to scroll down for the photo because I don't think it looks bad anymore.  I actually think it looks really great!

Some explanation is necessary here.  The purple-y portion in the center is my burn.  So is the brown-ish area above the purple-y area.  The red area to the side is a rash.  Boo. :(   It's interesting that the rash stops right at the edge of the new skin from my healing burn.  Both the rash and the burn are getting better.  

I actually really enjoyed changing my bandage every 12 hours because the burn looked better literally every time I looked at it.  The body moves fast!  And modern medicine helps it move even faster!

The burn maintenance has been pretty low key.  It does take me longer to get ready in the morning (You know with the keeping one leg from getting wet in the shower and all.  Oh, and the cleaning and re-bandaging morning and night, too) but that's about it.  The burn was doing well enough by Saturday that I bandaged it special and went to Raging Waters with T's family and everything was totally fine!  Tons more about our extra long Utah vacation coming soon...

Burned by Bacon

I love bacon, but bacon doesn't love me.  One time I tried to cook bacon in the oven.   That didn't work out so well - the bacon caught on fire.  Tuesday night I tried to fry bacon on the stove.  And I got splattered on my leg.  Bad.  (Dad, I really like you, so I'm going to post the photo at the very bottom so you don't have to look at it.)

It hurt like crazy!  Part of my skin was brown / black and had peeled back.  I cooled the burn, cut off the dead skin, then put some burn cream on it and put a giant band-aid on it.  And it hurt for the rest of the night.  A lot. I wasn't sure if it was a first or second degree burn (a second degree usually blisters, but I didn't see a blister).

Today the burn still hurt and it was red and bloody splotchy looking.  I already knew from school that burns need to be kept moist and covered and that burns can become infected very easily.  I didn't know what a normal burn was supposed to look like because signs of infection are redness, swelling, and hot, all of which come standard with burns.  I really thought I could take care of this on my own, but we are going on vacation soon and I didn't want this burn to mess that up.  So after calls to my mom, T, and the ask-a-nurse hotline I went to the insta-care.

Good news, it's not infected.  Bad news, it's a big second degree burn.  The blister area was actually pretty well defined once I knew what I was looking for.  Immediately after the grease hit my leg I  automatically tried to use my other foot to brush the grease off and that probably ruptured the blister.  More bad news, the burn is bigger than I originally thought (there was a lot of swelling).  The burn is slightly too large for the largest band-aid so I have to use gauze and an ace bandage (which makes the burn look way worse than it is).  More bad news, I have to keep the burn protected from the sun for about 1.5 months.  The actual skin will heal in 2-3 weeks, but it is very vulnerable to scarring and sunburn for 5-8 weeks.  Even more bad news, I probably can't swim on our vacation!  Booooo.  But they did tell me if I wanted to try it, the best way to do it.  So we will see...

But I'm glad I went to the insta-care.  I got some special cream and told how to care for my burn twice a day and now I don't have to worry about it on vacation.

And now for the photo.  If you don't want to see it, don't scroll down any more...

This is at insta-care before treatment.  You can see where the grease dripped a bit down my leg and the pretty well defined blister area.  The brown isn't dirt, it's dead burnt skin that hasn't fallen off yet.  I was hoping to wear sandals to the weddings, but now it looks like I will be wearing boots (seriously, with the ace bandage it looks like my whole leg is burnt).

This is the burn about 8 hours after treatment.  Look at that lovely color!

Other things we have been up to that don't quite deserve their own post

Shortly after Easter T and I explored Union Station.

I LOVE the main corridor.  I want to attend or throw some fancy schmancy event here.  The space is just gorgeous.  That week the space was being used to display DC public school art depicting the cherry blossom festival.  Some of those elementary kids are already 10 times more artistically gifted than I am!

In the (extremely smelly) food court T bought me this apple fritter that was as big as my face.

There are quite a few of these signs around and they always make me giggle.  The driveway isn't so hidden now! Haha!

On May 14th T and I went to our first roller derby game (match?).  We went because one of T's co-workers was playing in the championship game.  It was a TON of fun.

A side note:  The game was held at National Guard location and we had to go through metal detectors.  They were so strict about the no food or drink thing and threw away my bag of Skittles, but didn't look twice at my mace.  Am I the only one who finds that a bit odd?

We had no idea what to expect game wise when we went in at all.  Really, we both thought there was some kind of ball / net involved.  After we got our seats we did some quick googling to find out the basics of the game.  There's not a net.  Or ball.  I won't explain it here, but just know that it's a violent team race around an oval kind of thing.  Some of those girls were scary with some pretty serious hip checks!  Our team won so that's always good.


We left the roller derby a bit early to attend a D.C. United soccer game literally across the street.  D.C. United plays in the old Redskins stadium (the Nationals played there for a couple of seasons, too) and everyone sat in the lowest level.

We attended the tail gate and game with T's co-workers because T's work had free tickets.  The game was a tie and ended just as it started to rain.  And then it poured all the way home.  Like "wipers on as fast as they go and still can't see anything" kind of rain.


Last week we went to an outdoor movie in a park.  The parking garage was ridiculously small.  My head almost touched the ceiling at our parking spot and elsewhere in the garage the clearance was only 5'1"!!!

Remember how there are no "Welcome to D.C." signs out here?  Well, now there is one!  This used to be just a blank white sign, but about a week before my parents visited, the welcome sign went up!  Yay!  They really do want us here!  (I took this while T was driving - there's definitely NOT any good places to pull over in this area (due to traffic, not crime!)).

This giant butterfly was hanging out on our screen for several hours during a windstorm.

As you probably know, there are a lot of tour buses in D.C.  I spotted this one in Georgetown.  who know Mercedes Benz made buses?!

Anyway, if you can't tell, we're having a pretty fantastic time out here.

Three Way Stop

Have you seen this?  You might want to watch it in full screen (grandma, to watch full screen hit play then move the mouse over the movie then click on the arrows to the left of the word "vimeo").  This takes place in NYC, but it could easily be Georgetown here in The District.  Those crazy bikers!  And peds!  And cabbies!  It's dangerous out there.


3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

Heels

So I don't really need new heels, but these are the pairs I am currently coveting:

Dermani by Ivanka Trump:  I love this shade of blue and the knot on the side.

Skyscraper by Christian Louboutin:  You might think I'm crazy, but I would LOVE to wear heels this tall.

What shoes are you coveting?

The Chesapeake

We visited Chesapeake Bay on May Day.  The drive there was lovely.  There are so many trees all over!  I don't think I'll ever get over how many trees there are along the freeways in Virginia.

Keeping with our state sign trend I took this horrible last minute photo through the top of the windshield as we crossed into Maryland.  It's interesting that there is an accompanying sign for the governor.  What a waste of taxpayer dollars, Maryland!

The Chesapeake Bay is so wide that at times you can't see the other side.  But, the Chesapeake is also pretty shallow.  A six foot man could walk across about 80% of the Bay.

There were quite a few people digging in the sand.  I'm not quite sure what they were digging for...

All along the boardwalk there were benches in honor of so and so.  We saw this bench...

And obliged...

Falling

I'm falling in love with Virginia.  This might be premature because we have really only experienced one season here.  But the fact of the matter is that spring in Virginia is gorgeous.  Ridiculously so.  (I have secret hopes that autumn will be even better than spring.)  I love all the green (lawns, flowers, trees, trees, and more glorious trees).  I love that D.C. doesn't have sky scrapers.  I love the thunderstorms.  I love that there are SO. MANY. things to do here.  I even like the humidity (it reminds me of Iowa and you know how much I love Iowa).

Some other reasons Virginia is pretty freakin' awesome:  The state beverage is milk - which is also my favorite beverage!  The state bird is the cardinal which everyone knows is the coolest bird right after eagles!  The first Thanksgiving was held here in 1618 and Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!  The state motto is "sic semper tyrannis" or "thus always to tyrants."  How can you not love a state that has been sticking it to the man since the 1600's?!  Basically, the more I know Virginia the more I love her. 


Yes, I know that technically Virginia is a commonwealth, but really people, it's not a big deal to call it a state.  Let's be real: it's the 50 states.  You never hear anyone refer to the 46 states and the 4 commonwealths.  

Now here's a little unrelated something to make you smile.

courtesy of tots & giggles