OMG!!! It's a gum burn!!!

So you might be a little curious about the title of this post. It's a follow up to last weeks post about the zoo trip. Sorry it's taken so long to get here, but life has been some what chaotic this past week. Ok. Maybe not JUST somewhat chaotic, it's been a an all out chaos-fest. In any case, sit back, relax, and be prepared to think "Really? Nah, they couldn't be that foolish, could they?". So last Saturday morning, as I was cooking eggs for Miguel's breakfast, Sam was throwing one of his usual tantrums because I wouldn't pick him up. Poor boy, don't you already feel sorry for him? So for the sake of my nerves, I picked him up. What does he do as I am heating the pan with OIL in it to cook the eggs? Yeah, you guessed it, he put his hand in the pan. He managed to only burn a finger, which began to blister. I immediately treat it and decide it's not bad enough to warrant a trip to the ER. So I give him some pain killer and off we go to the zoo. He complains and is upset about his finger all morning, and rightfully so. Burns hurt. So we'll fast forward through the day to making the gingerbread house. See the picture left. We decorate the gingerbread house, all the while I'm letting Katie do most of the work. She's happily adorning the house with candies of all description, as well as some gum balls. I let her have a couple of gum balls, and apparently behind my back Sam is helping himself to a couple too. Why is this an important part of the story, you might ask? Well, I'll tell you. These little gumballs contain FLESH colored gum. The particular one Sam got a hold of, must have had a red shell. So we finish the gingerbread house, Miguel comes home from work and we head out to get something to eat. The real drama is about to begin. Seriously. After dinner we head home, and start getting the kids ready for bed. Miguel takes Sam's shirt AND sweater vest off to discover some nasty looking scratched up "sore" on Sam's shoulder. His RIGHT shoulder, the same side as his burned finger. I look at it and feel the "skin" and start wondering what in the world is going on. Miguel says, "Is that a burn?". Looking at it, it could be. I suppose. If it is a burn, it's a really nasty nasty weird looking burn. So we decide that to prevent it getting infected or anything we'll take him to the ER and get "the burn" and his finger treated. So all the while, I'm thinking, did I really miss a burn that huge? How could I not have noticed his shoulder was bothering him? We get to ER, the intake nurse, says wow that looks like a nasty "burn", let's put you guys on the fast track. So we go back and get seen by a nurse practitioner, who says to us, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not a burn, it's gum." Oh no, really? We just wasted an ER visit and everybody's time for GUM?!?! To be fair, it was flesh colored, with bits of red shell,and he had been scratching at it, apparently. We weren't the only ones fooled. So we wait for someone to come remove said gum, because it is very very stuck to his skin, which by the way, it took almost a week to get all of it off. But we don't have to wait long because Sam starts pulling at it and takes care of most of the removal for us. Sigh.....there's me, feeling like a moron. Thinking my son is going to have this huge scar and deal with all kinds of things related to a burn. CHOA (Children's Healthcare of Atlanta) was nice enough to wrap up and treat his finger and off we went home. At 2am in the morning. Back home. Yeah, definitely one for the scrapbook.