A burning desire...

On Sunday I accidentally burned my hand brewing coffee at church. It was scary. I had gotten off to a rocky start that morning...had bike difficulties which I finally ironed out. Then I took a "shortcut" along a portion of the MKT I don't normally ride on (and saw an indigo bunting which was awesome!) but ended up struggling up one mother of a hill. Towards the top I had to get off and push. Oh well, I made it up to the top. I was 15 minutes late to brew and then brewed some flavored in a specialty basket....which I fixed later (shhhh don't tell anyone).

Anyway, then the espresso grinder broke and the barista used the industrial coffee grinder we have-- only she accidentally left it on the espresso setting rather than the drip setting. I did not catch this until later---the espresso grind is too fine for our industrial brewers and clogs them up which is exactly what happened causing the coffee brewer to overflow.

What is NOT supposed to happen is that I try and remove the brew basket while mega hot water is pouring through it. I had shut off the machine and tugged on the brew basket too hard and very, very hot water and coffee poured over my right hand. I let out a scream, dropped the brew basket, and ran to the sink to put my hand under cool water.

I was fortunate that a nurse was in the crowd and she took me to the ER where they helped me out (she also brought my bike to me later that day--Lynn, you are a SAINT!). I had to follow-up at the burn unit on Monday where they said I had a 2nd degree burn on the back of my right hand (my palm was spared). It has been a tiring few days and what is worse: no bike riding. I can't squeeze the brake levers yet so no riding until I can make sure I can stop. The burn unit folks took lots of pictures (said I won 'blister of the day') and put some stuff called DuoDerm on my burn to help it heal. I also wear a little glove over the DuoDerm and bandages. Today the burn is starting to itch which they said was a good sign--it is healing. I will have a pink area on my hand for about 6 months but no long term scars if I treat my hand right.

I hope in a few more days to be on my bike. Burns suck.