Corned Beef
What a night. I decided to cook one of our favourite meals tonight - Corned Beef with Mashed Potato and Red Cabbage & steamed beans, but unfortunately everything didn’t quite go to plan.
I started cooking the Red Cabbage earlier in the day, as it tastes best when it has had time to cook down & stew - I put it on to cook before I went to a job & it stewed for about 9hrs + in the end.
Geoff went to his game (touch football) & I had a chat to a friend on Skype & then I put the Roast Beef on, when Geoff got home from his game of touch (they won by the way - 2 weeks in a row, which was pretty cool, and very rare). I was feeling a little tired & managed to get Geoff to put the potatoes on & then fell asleep. I must admit that when I woke up I was a little grumpy (not a very happy camper when I wake up at the best of times). Everything was still on the stove - DOH! So I got up and decided to pull it off - Geoff followed & said that he could do it, but me being me, I had to do it myself.
The big pot that the corned beef was in, had one of the handles break off (Geoff reckons that the handle is around, but I am sure that it is long gone - so I picked up the pot by the one handle that was still attached & used a tea towel to hold onto the other side of the pot. I only needed to move it about 1.5m from the stove top to sink area so that the corned beef could be removed from the pot of boiling water safely (the last time I tried to cook it, I managed to get the corned beef out of the pot, then it dropped back in & splashed onto my hand, burning me, so I thought that this was the way to go). Geoff was kinda in the way, insisting on helping & me ignoring & then when I thought that I had reached the counter, I soon realised I hadn’t. Within seconds, the pot full of boiling water was all over the front of me. At first I said nothing, then I started screaming & ripping off my pants (track pants) & then I threw myself on the couch - screaming in pain. Geoff didn’t know what the hell was going on & looked at my leg & convinced me to go upstairs & into the shower.
I only lasted about 10 min under the shower, I was finding that the shower was causing a lot more pain - probably because it’s practically a waterfall when it comes out of the shower head - ok when you want a decent shower, but when the water is actually causing more of the skin to peel off - PAINFUL!!!
After only lasting 10 min under the shower, Geoff convinced me yet again to get in the bath - he ran a cold one, but I swear it wasn’t that cold, any movement of the water just caused more pain, but that was done every once in a while. I was in the bath for about 2.5 hrs. I went into shock & I do recall banging my head against the wall & my fists on the bath, trying to cause more pain in other areas to distract myself. I really didn’t want to go to hospital, but in the end we decided that it was the best thing to do. I insisted on wearing undies & fortunately I had my wrap around (100 different ways to wear) silk skirt that I used to kinda cover myself, which I wore with my Atari t-shirt and a beanie, as I my torso was extremely COLD. It was a bad look, looking back, but I didn’t really give a shit, at least I was covered.
We headed to Robina Hospital Emergency Dept & I joined the masses (there wasn’t really that may people, but there was a bit of a delay). I couldn’t sit down due to the burn & trying to maintain some level of decency, so had to tough it out, fortunately I didn’t faint, but boy did I want to.
They did hurry my through apparently, but once I was in & they got me onto a bed, they certainly weren’t making a lot of effort to get to me any time soon, someone had anaphylaxis and there was a sick baby as well as heaps of other patients. Boy was I happy that I had taken some pain killers. A nurse happened across me almost an hour after we had been there & was a little curious as to why I was there & why no-one had seen me, I think that if I hadn’t had any pain killers and was screaming my lungs out then I might have been seen earlier. The pain was still quite intense, but it was a good idea to take something after the length of time that expired. In the end they just slapped some silver cream on me & put on a rough bandage & told me to come again tomorrow. I received a medical certificate to cover me from now until Monday 7th, but I don’t really want to cancel any jobs that I have.