I stared at the puke green wall opposite me. It was the only non-white walls of the four that surrounded me, with standard probing tools lining them. I stretched my neck around me out of boredom, trying to find something my thought life could land on, as I sat there alone, waiting for the doctor.
The pain was ebbing in my right hand, wrapped in a small white towel and sitting on the desk that held the computer where all my updated information was kept.
Apparently, last time I'd been to Urgent Care, I was jobless and living in a different location.
Random bits of conversation flooded through the bottom of the closed door with microphonic audibility, as nurses and patients passed through the unseen hall. This wasn't the ER, so there were plenty of Pleases and Thank You politenesses being swapped around by masked patients. A woman had walked in cheerfully requesting an ice pack for her injured fingers, while I was still in the waiting room.
The doctor walked in. I had already talked myself out of the suspicion that they had forgotten me. A tall, middle-aged man, with silver thin-framed glasses. Nice enough, and not the worst "bedside manner" I'd experienced.
"Any lasting scarring?" I asked.
There would be none.
"Any nerve damage?"
Nope. Second degree burns don't do that.
No prescription was written as I thought I could make it at this point with ibuprofen. All I have to do is put special goop on it for the next few days until the blister heals up.
Here's what happened: It's a Friday. After a few weeks we're finally going to learn FinalCut, the software that allows one to do professional film/video editing. It's been a few weeks of messing with cameras and talking about interviewing, but this is when the good stuff begins.
I've got a half hour between work and class, so I treat myself to a cafeteria salad and hot tea (It's Friday, after all). Walking cheerily to my class on this prematurely beautiful February day, I've got my paper tea cup cupped between my wrist and my jacket, holding my to-go salad. I squeeze the cup a little too much on accident and the lid tips up, allowing a drop of hot water to hit my hand. Ouch! My reaction is not to drop what I'm holding, so I squeeze tighter. More steaming water spills onto the base of my thumb knuckle. This time I scream, and drop everything I'm carrying, tearing off my glove. I look at my hand. It appears that a top layer of skin has melted off around a nickel-large area.
Nothing but mounting pain could have torn me out of that class. But it did. Within a half hour I took the advice of my classmate and drove myself to the nearest Urgent Care. On the way there I cried because it hurt so much, but by the time I got to the front desk (where I was told by the receptionist that an ice pack on a burn was a mistake) it had started to abate, and by the end of the night I barely felt it, and was preoccupied with homework, groceries, and calling people to let them know I was okay.
The pain was ebbing in my right hand, wrapped in a small white towel and sitting on the desk that held the computer where all my updated information was kept.
Apparently, last time I'd been to Urgent Care, I was jobless and living in a different location.
Random bits of conversation flooded through the bottom of the closed door with microphonic audibility, as nurses and patients passed through the unseen hall. This wasn't the ER, so there were plenty of Pleases and Thank You politenesses being swapped around by masked patients. A woman had walked in cheerfully requesting an ice pack for her injured fingers, while I was still in the waiting room.
The doctor walked in. I had already talked myself out of the suspicion that they had forgotten me. A tall, middle-aged man, with silver thin-framed glasses. Nice enough, and not the worst "bedside manner" I'd experienced.
"Any lasting scarring?" I asked.
There would be none.
"Any nerve damage?"
Nope. Second degree burns don't do that.
No prescription was written as I thought I could make it at this point with ibuprofen. All I have to do is put special goop on it for the next few days until the blister heals up.
Here's what happened: It's a Friday. After a few weeks we're finally going to learn FinalCut, the software that allows one to do professional film/video editing. It's been a few weeks of messing with cameras and talking about interviewing, but this is when the good stuff begins.
I've got a half hour between work and class, so I treat myself to a cafeteria salad and hot tea (It's Friday, after all). Walking cheerily to my class on this prematurely beautiful February day, I've got my paper tea cup cupped between my wrist and my jacket, holding my to-go salad. I squeeze the cup a little too much on accident and the lid tips up, allowing a drop of hot water to hit my hand. Ouch! My reaction is not to drop what I'm holding, so I squeeze tighter. More steaming water spills onto the base of my thumb knuckle. This time I scream, and drop everything I'm carrying, tearing off my glove. I look at my hand. It appears that a top layer of skin has melted off around a nickel-large area.
Nothing but mounting pain could have torn me out of that class. But it did. Within a half hour I took the advice of my classmate and drove myself to the nearest Urgent Care. On the way there I cried because it hurt so much, but by the time I got to the front desk (where I was told by the receptionist that an ice pack on a burn was a mistake) it had started to abate, and by the end of the night I barely felt it, and was preoccupied with homework, groceries, and calling people to let them know I was okay.
revenge of the tea! I am glad you are alright.
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