TIFU: By trying to discreetly treat a burn... on my finger

So, I am typing this with one finger and I'm also using Bixby to type out most of the text, please excuse the errors.

Today I was playing tennis against the wall, but when I exercise against the wall, I do not just do it for a few minutes, I go for an 1.5h to 3 h against the wall (and yes it is very exhausting) and in between my tennis routines and drills I do serves on the court and because I stand still most of the time when I'm serving, I get in the rest I need and that is why I can last up to 3 hours.

I have learned a new forehand grip and serve grip, but the thing about learning a new grip in tennis, is that you need to beat it into your muscle memory by hitting thousands and thousands of balls (well at least it feels like thousands of balls) but I pretty much have made the new grip my own.

I put target against the wall and I am fairly accurate when I play intense against the wall, like I'll get 6 out of the 10 balls in the 1 m² square target.

But every time I go, because of the new grip, I kind of hurt the skin on my hands. It's just that the skin is soft in those areas and there's gonna be a little bit of a redness and there's gonna be a little swelling, I've had it before and it's not the end of the world. They actually toughen up when they heal and that is what I'm used to referring to as a tennis hand.

But today I went a little bit too far and the redness on my thumb wasn't completely healed every time when I went out to practice the last 4 weeks. And today, with the high intensity at drills (that I doubled up for some reason), I started to feel some over sensitivity on the area of my thumb.

But no, I did not stop, I kept on going and going and going and going, I needed to get in high consecutive number of balls in the target and by the time I was ready to backup and leave.... there was a blister on my thumb, about half the size of a penny, and it was located around the inner middle joint area of my thumb.

As you probably know, I got a friction burn on my thumb. Maybe it's something to do with the overgrip, maybe it's something to do with the new grip, or maybe I'm just being idiot for not letting it heal completely before I went out again (it takes a long time for it to completely heal, I was too impatient).

But no worries I know how to treat a friction burn, well I know how to treat burns over all, and if it's not serious then I can just treat myself, if it is very serious, I get help. But I didn't want to get help because doesn't seem that serious to me, it's just a very big blister, but it's kind of annoying because it's just at that spot where everything I do with my hand, it comes into contact with the blister and the last thing you want to happen with a blister especially, is for it to burst (or tear open).

At 1st I thought that I could just leave it, since blisters take like a day or 2 to go away on their own, but after a few hours I realized that if I didn't do something about it, it's either going to keep swelling or it's gonna burst.

How fun was it now to try and do 1st aid on a burn that is my thumb, without making a mess. I was trying to keep the mess to the minimum and not make a lot of noise, because I didn't want to track attention to it, because it's not that a big of a deal and my family members don't even need to necessarily know about it.

I completely failed at doing it discreetly, I made a lot of noise, I made a huge mess (that I already cleaned up) and somehow no one else but my Mom knew about my little endeavor, which is why I'm sharing it here, since I really do want to share this story without scarring my dignity too much.

First I tried cutting a piece of the sponge (it's soaked in some kind of gel and the product is used to apply it to the surface of burns, and it may seem unnecessary, but I changed my mind about it when the area was getting hotter and hotter), and I succeeded, next was to wrap it up with a bandaid....

IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THAT DIFFICULT!

I was taught to use a specific type of band aid that was in a roll, and after finally fetching it out with my gel soaked hands, the damn thing was sticking to itself, so much that it'd put those unnecessarily strong duct tape to shame! I had to use my full strength to get like 10 cm of it! And yes, the piece of sponge and gel was ruined in the process. After struggling for 10 minutes to finally get a decent, unstuck, unfolded, and relatively whole piece, I cut another piece of sponge, and struggle again to just wrap the thumb. It kept sliding off the blister, the tape.. I mean 'band aid dipped in gorilla glue' waxed off knuckle hair I didn't even know I had, and I almost tore off the blister with that thing while I was adjusting the sponge.

Finally, I had a mess of a wrap up, but I just used regular band aids to touch it up, but there was one problem, it was a little tight, and of all the things I needed to avoid, I should especially avoid putting it too tight. I thought it might have been the covering band aids that are there to make it look a little better, but no, it was the gorilla tape.

Attempt number 2:

I took off everything (there was no gel anyways since it came off during my struggles), and I decided to cut a new sponge, and then the band-aids....

Common! I should've learned by then that I should prepare the band-aids before the sponge! I struggled opening the band-aids, since the gel soaked into the paper and I just ripped it open. I then tried to put it on the... NOPE! The band-aids were getting SOAKED, and try as I might to salvage as much of the gel I could, I ended up wrapping the wet band-aids around the sponge and I was ready to call it, but again, there was one problem. Contrary to my first attempt, it was a little loose. Don't get me wrong, I want it a little loose, but this was actually too loose.

It was so loose in fact, it was swinging around my thumb over and over again, as if my thumb was using my sorry excuse of 1st aid like a freaking Hulu Hoop!

I guess that's why I was taught to use gorilla tape instead of regular band aids, since regular band aids soak up the gel and in turn become completely useless.

Attempt number 3:

By then, the table was a mess! There was an open leaking gel bag, scissors and a box cutter, masking tape (I kept it close as a last resort), 8 pieces of ripped semi soaked band-aid paper, four pieces of soaked band-aids, two unwrapped bandages (again as a last resort), and gorilla tape (somehow still looks as clean as I first got it) on the table.

This time I was trying to be smart, by first trying to prepare a decent piece of gorilla tape, pulling it with my non dominant hand and holding it with my dominant hand so that I avoid contact with the blister. I make sure I have a good grip and I start pulling with all my strength, and I was making good progress!

I adjusted my hands as I pulled so I can hold it more comfortably, and that's how I finally FU.

You see, holding things comfortably tends to be in a way that you can hold it tight enough to withstand your own strength, and that just happens to be a holding grip... directly over the inner joint of my thumb, which is on top of the.... I mean was on top of, the blister, that was, by then, very clearly burst open. This was painfully obvious without needing to look at it.

So I started to curse out loud, right as Mom walked into the kitchen, that was in total chaos. Just take a moment and imagine what Mom was seeing at that moment, and all she wanted to do was to make a cup of coffee.

As awesome as Mom is, she took 5 seconds to process the scene, gave one sigh, and without skipping a beat, jumped into Master Chaos Control mode and took over everything.

She effortlessly applied 1st aid, cleaned up the mess, neatly stored away all the medical stuff, made a cup of coffee, and left.

We didn't utter a single word to each other, I didn't even tell her where the injury was, and my wrapped up thumb looks like a master piece of art.

Next time, I'll just ask for help, especially if I'm hindered by the injury that I'm trying to treat.

Note that all of this chaos was a result of the burn being specifically on this part of my thumb. I wouldn't have struggled this much with a burn anywhere else!

TL;DR: Played 2 hours tennis, got a friction burn on my thumb, struggled to treat it with gel sponge, band-aids and gorilla tape, 3 attempts later I FU and made a total mess, Mom seemingly with no effort fixes everything without saying anything, and I'm left with a story I can only tell to strangers on Reddit