The Phone Call

A few days after arriving home from the wedding I was waiting for The Prairie Kid to get out of school.  My cell phone rang and it was The Prairie Daddy.

"Are you picking up The Prairie Kid after school?"
"Of course, he has soccer tonight."
"Well, I need to fill you in on the situation.  I kind of got chemically burned and I was wondering if you could call the doctor."
"What do you mean you kind of got chemically burned?"

I will tell you what he meant.  He was belly crawling through a culvert patching it up with mortar mix.  Some water mixed with the mortar and soaked through his clothes.  Mortar is a pH of 13.  Before he could even feel it, he was burned on his chest, elbows, knees, thighs and wrist.  By the time he got out and got rinsed off he was 3rd degree burned on 8% of his body.

I drove to the ranch to get him.  He got off the mountain where he was working and met me at our house.  We packed our bags for the night and headed immediately to the ER.  The news wasn't good.  After three days of outpatient wound care we were sent to the Burn Center at the Univ of Utah in Salt Lake City.  We spent 16 days there where he had grafting surgery done on 7 sites.  We had to leave The Prairie Kid with family for the entire time.  It was the hardest thing we've ever been through.

I will likely write more about my heart/thoughts on this another time.  My husband will make a full recovery and is healing well.  We're finally feeling like "normal" again and are thankful to have put this behind us.