I always wanted to become a medical doctor and was always aware of the fact that there are some basic skills everyone should know and I did renew my First Aid skills regularly. Especially since I’m a mother.

We all know that it’s important to know First Aid because we never know what happens next in life. Unsuspected situations can happen every minute. Some might try to ignore it, hoping that it will never happen to them, but things do happen… It surely doesn’t harm (never!) to learn First Aid skills. Especially when we have children, we should know at least the basics.

Those who know me, know that I’m always carrying a First Aid kit with me when I’m out and about (especially since I have children) and I did have to use it quite often and unfortunately not only for minor bruises…

I did teach my children some First Aid basics and they know exactly what is dangerous in the house. But as all children, they are keen to learn to be more and more independent and responsible also for more dangerous tasks – but usually do them when I or my husband are around. Nevertheless things can still happen to them as they can happen to us adults too…

Yesterday, my daughters did get up pretty early and wanted to make a big surprise for mum and dad by preparing the breakfast. This included also a nice cup of tea. My husband did put hot water in a thermos before leaving for his morning run and one of my girls did pour us a nice cup of tea. She did it very carefully and everything was fine. But it happend when she tried to close the mechanism of the thermos: hot water spilled over her wrist. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t cry, she tried even to hide it from us. When I came downstairs a few minutes later we realized that she must have burnt her wrist and I hold her wrist under cool water for almost 20 minutes. I then put a ice pack on the wrist and applied some burn gel on the wound several times until I thought that the wound was fine (the skin was still intact) and did add some special cream. Everything seemed fine for the whole day. The skin was intact and she didn’t have any pain.

Until this morning. She was playing outside when the wound all of a sudden did burst. I knew that an infection could be dangerous and so we went to the hospital, where they had to remove a piece of the dead skin,  disinfect the rest of the wound, put on a special medication and apply a bandage.

Did I do anything wrong? Well, not for the “First Aid”, but afterwards I should have seen that the wound needed a bandage. The wound was bigger than a 2 Euro coin and it was dark red… The nurse in the emergency room said that I didn’t do anything wrong, but I remembered know that I should have known better…

Even if we do refresh our First Aid skills regularly, there are always small parts that we can miss. I do feel guilty for omitting this bandage-part but I’m incredibly glad that she will be fine soon, that she doesn’t feel any pain. – The next time I’ll go to the doctor earlier, that’s for sure, and I’ll definitely refresh my First Aid skills as soon as possible.

I wish you all a safe summer. xxx

If you live in the Netherlands, at the EHBO site you can find plenty of advices – and just sign up for your course!

Here you get medical advice online by professinal people Medicinenet, Justanswer,  Webmd.

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• Be Prepared: Own a First Aid Kit (bestfirstaidkits.wordpress.com)
• http://healthybodylife.com/3220-aid-courses-kind-information-learn/