It's that time again

[hawkwing_lb]

Two days shy of the annual puke-fest. So I'm a cynic. Going on holiday the day after St Pat's is guaranteed to be fun. Airport filled with revellers splitting for their countries of origin, anyone?

Yes, the sarcasm is set to ON.

I hate airports with capital-H Hate. And loathe them. Loathe.

Tomorrow I attend a summer job interview in the morning and pick up my passport in the late afternoon. In between I'll probably hide in Trinity's Ussher Library, staring at the cricket pitch and the Pav. Or maybe in one of the computer rooms. Try to write, or something.

Something, anyway.

I hate interviews, too.

Anyway, Walk the Line is a reasonably good film, for anyone who might think about seeing it. Joaquin Phoenix plays upright young Johnny Cash, sleazy not-so-young Cash, and reformed Cash with a fair panache, but the real star of the film is Reese Witherspoon, playing June Carter. Formerly, I doubted that Ms Witherspoon could play anything but the 'dumb blonde'. I have had that impression corrected. She's stunning in the role.

And the music isn't so bad, either.

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Research question, for anyone who's feeling marginally more lucky on Google than I am. What does a really bad burn look like? Say, one caused by repeated application of hot pokers to the forearm, and left untreated for a few days?

Yeah, the WIP has a torture victim. But I only torture imaginary people, honest. :-)

Comments

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

If you can stomach it, try a google image search?

(I can't, by the way, stomach it.)

But I imagine it would be infected, if the poker wasn't hot enough to caterize (is that how you spell it?) So...white or yellow pus, maybe? And maybe black bits where the skin is dead?

Ah, if you wanted to know about sunburns, I'd be your girl. Luckily I haven't seen too many of the other kinds of burns. Oh, hey, ask my mom, mrsroberts. She's probably treated some bad burns, and could give you better help.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I could stomach it - I was just very, very lazy last night. :-) Posted just before falling over, braindead.

I have seen no serious burns, either. Nasty pus-filled abrasions, yes; burns, no. For which I am truly grateful, except at research time :-).

(Does your mum know you're pointing strangers in her direction to ask her grisly questions about gruesome burns?)

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

*grin* Just tell her I sent you. She's used to me sending people to her for things like that. Last night I called her about dead bodies, and I've shoved sosostris2012 at her for physical therapist questions. :)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Wll, etumukutenyak has been gruesomely helpful below, so your mum will probably be spared my questions :-).

You must have a great relationship, if you can talk about dead bodies and send her your friends' icky questions :-).

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Really bad burns? Try black dry hard dead skin. That's eschar.

With infection, you get variously colored goo. Green goes with Pasteurella infection.

Yellowish-looking skin is scar tissue, IIRC. Pink, in various shades, is burned skin (1st through 2nd degree burns), and it will begin to heal slowly depending on the level of treatment. Does your WIP allow for cadaver skin or um, fetal tissue skin placement? That adds peeling to the appearance, but does a wonderful job in reducing the scar formation.

The fetal tissue is more of a foreskin tissue, cultured out and dispensed in sheets.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm thinking goo sounds appropriate. I need something nasty and icky, but not completely disabling - it's a second-world fantasy WIP, technology circa Renaissance equivalent but without the guns, so there's magic, but I haven't figured out the medical aspects of the tech-level (or the magic) yet.

I also have to figure out what sort of burn combined with tech/magic-level appropriate treatment (don't want to make the magic easy. Still working on figuring that out) would be mostly healed to full function (scarification optional) within a month. And this character has also recently undergone several other injuries, too, so I foresee a dive into medical textbooks and histories of medicine :-).

Thank you for the lovely grisly details. They're very helpful.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Well you can make your magic powerful enough to heal burns so bad the skin is dead without leaving a scar...it's your world. ;-) Whatever you want. In our reality, eschar is replaced by shiny scar tissue that is very fragile and doesn't stretch at all. First and second degree burns will heal with regular scarring, which can be minimal depending on the healing process, the medical care, and the cause of the burns.

Isn't medicine fun? :-D

Anytime you want details on injuries and healing, just ask. ;-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

::makes notes::

I'm going to be asking you more questions after I get back. Count on it :-)

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Oh, if you want to see nasty pics of burns, here's a place to start: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2002-123/2002-123b.html

Scroll down near the bottom of the page. Warning: it's not a pretty sight.

Also at the National Library of Medicine: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/burns.html

The NLM is more didactic information.

Ask away! This is fun. Er. I didn't say that out loud, did I?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

You're a good friend :-). If, perhaps, slightly evil.

I will be getting back to you. :-)