Burns, Bandages and the Emergency Room

My dad and step-mom make the most awesome meals ever. There is no point in ever going to a restaurant because quite frankly they make better meals than even some of the finest restaurants. One of their hobbies is cooking for their friends and neighborhood. They taught us how to cook filet mignon without ruining it. Instead of grilling it or broiling it, you put some olive oil in pan, sear the sides very fast on hot heat and then bake it. It is a fool-proof way of keeping it tender without having it overdone or raw in the middle.

My husband was cooking a filet mignon, a special treat, a week ago Wednesday. We had run out of paper towels so he did not wipe out the excess oil. When he put the steak in the pan, sure enough, a wonderful blob of hot oil arched over the pan onto the top of his foot. Bad burn. He left it open it just looked like a bad red burn. He decided he had better have a doctor look at it so he went to the Urgent Care after work on Monday night so he did not have to take time off for work on Monday. Bad move. They smeared Silvadene on it and told him to keep it bandaged, changing it every day because the new theory was to bandage it instead of leaving it open. They told him to smear it with Bacitracine and bandage it. Wednesday night he came home from work and I noticed right away that his foot was swollen and it was red above his ankle. I felt the red area and it was burning hot. A sense of controlled panic.

Background: Glenn got a bad case of cellulitis when he was in the Navy during a Shellback initiation for passing over the equator. Among other things, initiates have to climb on their knees through a tub filled with garbage a week old and then crawl on their knees all day. The problem was that several of them got infections and were prescribed antibiotics for a short time, not a full cycle, and the medical person in charge was not given enough guidelines for deaing with things in the tropics. So...they all got cellutitis again when some of the men returned to their station in Spain. Several times after that, it reoccured on its own with no open wound especially when he got run down. In 1979, it just flared up overnight (105 temp!) and he almost died from it and was hospitalized for 3 weeks. He hasn't had it since but I have heard those stories so we both had alarm bells going off when we saw this redness above the burn (which actually is not infected) and waiting to get into a doctor the next morning was not a good option.

So...my dh spent Wednesday night in the ER. The ER people listened to his medical history (something they did not so in 1979 despite his and his mom's comments and attempts to get them to listen and delayed giving him antibiotics since there was no open wound) and immediately put him on antibiotics via IV after checking that it wasn't a blood clot. They said he could go home afterwards and is now on antibiotics. Finally today, the redness is just starting to lessen. The burn itself they say looks great. They also said that some doctors prefer not to bandage or put antibiotic cream on burns because bacteria can get trapped underneath. That seems to be what happened. I guess when it comes to burns there are several opinions. Even though they told him not to bandage it, the burn hand-out from the ER said a person could do one or the other, both with the bandaging and the antibiotic cream. I have to say, almost every time we have gone to this Urgent Care, we have paid even more in money and complications but sometimes due to work or doctor scheduling, a person just cannot get in with the family doctor, not just ours but any of them. Lesson: wear shoes when cooking!

So, it has been a long, exhausting and worrisome week for us. Our plan for the holiday weekend is to stay home and take it easy and sleep and read and maybe do some creative stuff on the web --- and for Glenn to elevate his leg. He has been in a lot of pain from the swelling, although it looks like the antibiotics are starting to get into his system and things are getting better rather than getting worse or staying the same. I am going to read, I hope, and take a break from my normal reads to explore some books I have been wanting to explore for some time. I am thankful we caught this early and that the ER was really on top of things and took care of him right away.

AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus