This week I faced a major setback in my work that I felt imperative to reflect upon.

It began with an attempt to make iced tea. I boiled water for the tea and found a pitcher to make it in. I then took the full pot of boiling water and poured in into the large glass pitcher. This did not end well. I lifted the pitcher up by the handle and the bottom of the pitcher fell off due to the high heat. This resulted in the boiling water falling all over the table, the floor, and my fingers. While at first my hand didn’t hurt too badly. A searing pain kicked in and stayed with me for the next 10 hours or so into the night. The immense pain grew if I did not leave my hand in cold water so I sat in cold water for the entire remained of the day, starting at around 2. This made it incredibly difficult to fall asleep at night. The fingers still seared if not in water so I had to position myself to sleep with my hand draping off the bed into a bucket of water I had balanced on a chair. The morning brought some relief but the fingers are still red, blistering, and painful to the touch. I have been proscribed a burn cream after a telehealth appointment and have recently picked up and began to use the cream.

This has made many daily tasks rather difficult. It is hard to cook with three fingers unable to participate and wrapped in gauze. It is also hard to clean materials because hot water touching my burn causes extreme pain. Also, simpler tasks like filling out my timesheet and typing this very response are difficult to do without both hands.

I think this is an important part of my project because burns are something you are always exposing yourself to when cooking. This has been a dose of reality for me because it made me pay more attention to the focus I put on safety while cooking.