As I mentioned in the article, “A Family Emergency,” my now seventeen-month old son sat in some household cleaner which gave him a 3rd degree burn on his behind.  He had to endure surgeons debriding the burn and then attaching a skin graft to the most badly burned area.  My husband and I have been very viligant trying to keep the area clean and clear of infection.  It has been a very stressful and time-consuming ordeal.  He is finally healing nicely.  I never got to explain how this incident occurred.  So here is the whole story.

We came in Wednesday evening from a family swim.  I immediately dried Andrew off and put a diaper on him.  I dried off and clothed Isaac, who is two years old.  I then dried myself off and got dressed.  When I walked into the kitchen, I saw the cabinet under the sink open.  I saw a small puddle of liquid on the floor and the Basic G bottle next to it.  I picked up the bottle and saw that there was a small crack on its side.  I placed the bottle of cleaner in my sink, grabbed a towel, and mopped up the puddle.

Five to ten minutes later, Andrew came up to me wanting to be held.  When I picked him up, my forearm got wet.  I asked him, “What did you sit in, Drew?” knowing full well he could not tell me the answer.  I grabbed another towel and wiped down the outside of his diaper.  There was not much liquid to clean off of him and I honestly did not give it a second thought.

I dressed Andrew and the whole family went to the barn to ride horses.  Drew had a great time being led around the pen on horseback with my husband walking beside him.  Later we roasted marshmallows outside over a fire.  When Lane changed his diaper during the marshmallow roast, he mentioned that Drew had a bit of a diaper/heat rash.  Lane also told me that he had sprinkled some talcum powder on the rash.

The next morning the rash was bright red.  I treated it as diaper rash with the appropriate creams.  By the afternoon, it started welping up.  I was perplexed.  Isaac used to have a similar rash as he reacted to cow milk and wheat.  I spent hours trying to figure out what Andrew had eaten, drinken, and/or done differently.  I even had my step-mom come look at it to see if she had any ideas.  Then he started running a low-grade fever.

Early Friday morning when I saw his “rash”, I was horrified.  It looked so bad.  I immediately called my aunt in Dallas, who is a Registered Nurse, to see if she had any ideas what could be the problem or what I could do.  I described the rash to her.  She asked me the critical question.  “Is there anything that Andrew could have sat in the last couple of days?”

I thought and thought and all the sudden as if a lighning bolt jogged my memory, I remembered the puddle on the kitchen floor.  I read her the label and she typed it into her database.  She recommended that I take Andrew to his doctor.  I tried to get an appointment, but finally decided to take him to the emergency room in College Station, Texas.

They transferred us to the San Antonio burn unit at University Hospital via ambulance.  Andrew underwent the surgery and was released the next day.  We have to keep going back for follow-up appointments.

Am I the only person who sees the irony in this situation?  I make my own laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, goat milk soap, etc.  I try to use only natural ingredients for the benefit of my children and the environment.  And, my baby burns himself with a household cleaner.

The cleaner that burned him was Basic G by Shaklee.  It is a germicide.  I have never used it.  This bottle just sat under my sink for years without ever catching my eye.  I never even thought about it.

So, what can we all learn from this?

If you are not using something, get rid of it.  As soon as we got home from the hospital, I cleaned out from under my sink.  I hope that my children cannot hurt themselves with vinegar, baking soda, and my homemade cleaners.  My husband installed the best cabinet latches that we could find so that it will be more difficult to get under the sink just in case.  Anything else that would be harmful to children that we still need in our home, we put on a very high shelf.

Whether you are a parent, grandparent, or caregiver to children, please take my advice.  Start today by properly disposing of any harsh cleaners and chemicals.  Cleaning out your house of unused chemicals will help keep your family safe.  You won’t have to endure the last couple of weeks that we have had.

Tags: 3rd degree burns, chemical burn, natural cleaners, skin graft

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 6:55 am and is filed under Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.