All I Remember
Areli Macias
I died and came to life. It was Saturday, March 10, 2018 when my mom had told me to cook food while she went to the store to go get something real quick. I had put cooking oil in a pan and turned on the stove to heat up the grease to cook. I was letting it sit there for a bit to heat up, then later I turned it off and let it cool just a little. I set the food out on the counter to start cooking and then realized that, when I had gone to turn off the stove, I had made a big mistake.
I was distracted for too long and had forgotten about the grease on the pan. When I went to turn it off, I saw fire on the pan. I was scared, I didn’t know what to do. What first came in my head was water, but I knew water and oil don't mix and knew it would cause a huge explosion, so the only thing that I had in mind was to grab the pan by its handle and take it outside! While I was opening the door to my apartment, a big gust of wind blew and hit the fire. The fire came towards my hand. When I was feeling really hot and warm, I realized my hand was getting burnt by the fire. I checked, and I had blisters all over my hand.
The ambulance must have come to my house to check my hand and put something on it, but I don’t exactly remember. They had put me in the ambulance to take me to the hospital. The doctors checked my hand and said they’d have to do surgery because I had a third degree burn. The doctors cut off the burned skin, and after a week, I was transferred to a hospital for three days. I had surgery on Thursday morning. I had to shower my body and my mom helped me. After all that, I had put the gown on, the one I had to wear to go to surgery. I remember the nurses came for me in the bed to take me to the waiting room for surgery. Once it was time to get to surgery, I was scared because it was my first time having such a procedure. I got into the surgery room and got in the bed where they do what they do. They put the oxygen mask where it knocks you out, where you don’t feel pain, it numbs your whole body. That’s all I remember.
I remember I woke up feeling a horrible pain in my leg where the doctors did a skin graft, and I was crying so badly because of the pain, the horrible pain! My mom was beside me, and my dad was on the other side. My mom told the doctors to give me more painkillers so I didn’t feel the pain, but they didn’t work. After an hour or two, the pain started to go away. When the pain started to go away, they sent me back to my room and tried to put me on my bed. That’s when the nurses helped me get on my bed because it was hard for me to move.
Once it was time for me to go home, I had to be careful because I could hurt myself and my leg could bleed more. Whenever I had to wash my hands, I also had to be careful because I could move the stitches. When taking a shower, I had my mom helping me wash my hair because I couldn't do it with just one hand. Also when changing clothes, my mom had to help me, so basically my mom helped me with everything I had to do. Once I learned to do things with my left hand, I got used to it, but with most things I still needed my mom for help. I had to learn to write with my left hand while I was homeschooled, but my teacher would also help me write my paper work. When my hand started getting better, I started writing slowly with my right hand. What I learned was to not get distracted, and how to turn off the fire.