Another (Mis) Adventure in Missions...Another miracle!
Priscilla had come over to check on me and the story of the injuries sustained by her house-worker and house-worker's child when their pressure-cooker exploded only served to make me more grateful than I already was.
I'm so grateful that I had house guests that evening - Rikka and Teija, friends from another organization who were visiting Caluquembe for only one night. I've thought of them as my angels because they cared for me so very well. About 30 minutes prior to Priscilla's visit, I'd taken off the lid to the pressure cooker (because I didn't know what I was doing, obviously) and was met with loads of steam that burnt my left arm followed by most of the boiling water roiling over the edges of the pot and cascading down the front of my legs and onto my feet. Rikka and Teija jumped into action before I'd even moved away from the stove and stripped off my pants, socks, and shoes.
The first words out of my mouth were, "that actually wasn't really so bad." I think that was the adrenaline talking. A few seconds later I started to say, "Ok, it's actually burning now." As I stood in my kitchen in my shirt and underwear in front of my house guests, they immediately began to ask where it hurt the most as Rikka began to fill large bowls with cold water and Teija began to look for ice. My right foot was in the most pain, but the pain in my left arm was becoming more noticeable. Before I knew it, I had my right foot in a large kitchen bowl as Rikka poured more and more water into it to cover the parts that were burning the most. ...then I began to feel pain in my left foot so I went to the livingroom where they brought the bowl, now with ice and I sat on the sofa and placed both feet into it. I kept dipping the towel on my arm into the ice water every few minutes to quench the burning there. Rikka found Ibuprofen for me before running off to find a towel to drape over my right leg which had also begun to hurt.
After I was settled on the couch, we decided that maybe we could still have dinner, although the chicken soup I was preparing was no longer an option. I did have plenty eggs and we had breakfast for dinner. It was a bit strange for my guest to prepare dinner in my kitchen while I gave directions to the locations of needed items while sitting in my underwear on the couch with my feet in ice water and cold dripping towels placed on strategic parts of my body. It was decidedly NOT how I intended for the evening to turn out.
So where was the miracle? It happened the next day, or during the night, I don't know. As anyone who has experienced a burn knows - the pain is excruciating! I was barely able to get to sleep because every time I'd doze off, there'd be a pain shooting through my foot or arm that would wake me up again. I prayed that I'd be able to sleep and not toss and turn all night and finally I drifted off. When I woke up the next morning, I felt normal. I mean there was no pain. I felt my arm and it was radiating heat (like burn wounds tend to do) and there was inflammation in the area that was injured by the steam, but it didn't hurt at all. I squeezed it - no pain. I rolled my right ankle around a bit - nothing. No pain at all. I got up and went through my morning ritual - no pain still. I went over to the Cumming's house to let Priscilla know how I was doing - no pain! I was a bit nervous about putting a shoe on. I could tell that my right foot was swollen, but it didn't hurt at all.
That was 8 days ago as of this writing - I haven't felt any pain since night it happened. So, of course, I began to doubt that I'd been injured as severely as I initially thought. But...there was steam and boiling water that landed on my skin in various places. That causes injury. This was not all in my head or exaggerated. Yesterday I finally took the sock off of my right foot that I'd kept there for 7 days (for continuous pressure to prevent skin damage if possible) and here's what I saw:
I'm so grateful that I had house guests that evening - Rikka and Teija, friends from another organization who were visiting Caluquembe for only one night. I've thought of them as my angels because they cared for me so very well. About 30 minutes prior to Priscilla's visit, I'd taken off the lid to the pressure cooker (because I didn't know what I was doing, obviously) and was met with loads of steam that burnt my left arm followed by most of the boiling water roiling over the edges of the pot and cascading down the front of my legs and onto my feet. Rikka and Teija jumped into action before I'd even moved away from the stove and stripped off my pants, socks, and shoes.
The first words out of my mouth were, "that actually wasn't really so bad." I think that was the adrenaline talking. A few seconds later I started to say, "Ok, it's actually burning now." As I stood in my kitchen in my shirt and underwear in front of my house guests, they immediately began to ask where it hurt the most as Rikka began to fill large bowls with cold water and Teija began to look for ice. My right foot was in the most pain, but the pain in my left arm was becoming more noticeable. Before I knew it, I had my right foot in a large kitchen bowl as Rikka poured more and more water into it to cover the parts that were burning the most. ...then I began to feel pain in my left foot so I went to the livingroom where they brought the bowl, now with ice and I sat on the sofa and placed both feet into it. I kept dipping the towel on my arm into the ice water every few minutes to quench the burning there. Rikka found Ibuprofen for me before running off to find a towel to drape over my right leg which had also begun to hurt.
After I was settled on the couch, we decided that maybe we could still have dinner, although the chicken soup I was preparing was no longer an option. I did have plenty eggs and we had breakfast for dinner. It was a bit strange for my guest to prepare dinner in my kitchen while I gave directions to the locations of needed items while sitting in my underwear on the couch with my feet in ice water and cold dripping towels placed on strategic parts of my body. It was decidedly NOT how I intended for the evening to turn out.
So where was the miracle? It happened the next day, or during the night, I don't know. As anyone who has experienced a burn knows - the pain is excruciating! I was barely able to get to sleep because every time I'd doze off, there'd be a pain shooting through my foot or arm that would wake me up again. I prayed that I'd be able to sleep and not toss and turn all night and finally I drifted off. When I woke up the next morning, I felt normal. I mean there was no pain. I felt my arm and it was radiating heat (like burn wounds tend to do) and there was inflammation in the area that was injured by the steam, but it didn't hurt at all. I squeezed it - no pain. I rolled my right ankle around a bit - nothing. No pain at all. I got up and went through my morning ritual - no pain still. I went over to the Cumming's house to let Priscilla know how I was doing - no pain! I was a bit nervous about putting a shoe on. I could tell that my right foot was swollen, but it didn't hurt at all.
That was 8 days ago as of this writing - I haven't felt any pain since night it happened. So, of course, I began to doubt that I'd been injured as severely as I initially thought. But...there was steam and boiling water that landed on my skin in various places. That causes injury. This was not all in my head or exaggerated. Yesterday I finally took the sock off of my right foot that I'd kept there for 7 days (for continuous pressure to prevent skin damage if possible) and here's what I saw:
The skin on my arm had changed too after 7 days:
There was definitly a real injury. No, it still doesn't hurt at all! Praise Jesus!
Lessons learned:
1. Jesus STILL performs miracles!!
Lessons learned:
1. Jesus STILL performs miracles!!
2. Don't open a pressure cooker - ever. In fact, just don't close one ever again and I won't have to worry about it (nope, I'm not even going to Google instructions for using one correctly. I'm leaving that to the 'experts').
3. Always wear nice underwear! (Thanks mom!)
4. Scars are there to verify that a miracle happened.
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