a year ago

I had been living in Chicago - in an apartment alone for the first time after having shared a place with my BF and a house with four college girlfriends before that - for about a week when my oven exploded.

Exploded may be a little much. Technically, it was something of an oven blast. Call it what you will, it sent me to the hospital with third degree burns on my face.

I had just gotten home from the gym and I was cooking enchiladas. As I was sauteeing veggies in a pan on the stovetop, I preheated the oven to the bake the enchiladas for a few minutes. For the record, I hate cooking. I am bad at it, it stresses me out, and I rarely did it. When it was my turn to cook, the choices were enchiladas or ... well... that's it.

A few minutes after turning on the oven, I wasn't sure it was getting warm, and like an idiot, opened the oven door and held my face close to see if it was heating up. Upon opening the door, I was met with a massive blue fireball that whooshed out at me, directly into my face.

I half-screamed, slammed the door, and patted my face down. That's right, I f-ing had to pat my damn face down. I could smell the rancid stench of burned hair. That was part of my bangs and the tips of my eyebrows and eyelashes.

I turned off the burner and oven, threw water on my face and ran to the bathroom mirror, just in time to see a thin film of skin on my nose roll up and slide off. I put a wet towel on my face - it was beginning to hurt like hell - and proceeded to panic. I called my BF, who hundreds of miles away in New York was really helpless, and I think at one point I ran downstairs and banged on the building engineer's door.

I had no idea what to do. I was alone and hurt. Finally, I called the one friend I had in Chicago, who - thank the heavens - came over immediately and drove me about three blocks to the ER. She spent the evening there with me as my face reddened and tightened and stung. She assured me it wasn't that bad and the doctors would see me soon, and even distracted me by flirting with a ER-regular in this time for a broken wrist.

The doctor kindly told me what I knew, cleaned off the burns and gave me an antibiotic cream. It could have been so much worse, we all said, and it's true. I was immensely lucky. This was my face for chrissake, where my eyes and mouth and nose and other vital things are located. That and my dashing good looks....




Just in case, I took a bunch of pictures of the burns. Minimal, I know. In fact, I realized it wasn't the burns that were so bad, it was the recurring horror of that flame jumping from my oven directly into my face.


I suppose the gas lit and the pilot light as out. Opening a door of bottled up gas, which lit from the stove flame, sent a massive but short-lived fireball into my face. Although it was a new stove, I ordered the building engineer replace it, and after threatening to sue (I was mad the management company seemed to disregard what had happened), the company finally agreed to pay my minimal doctors bills.

A week later, the thin scabs fell from my face revealing new, pink skin. But only after days of stares and feeling ugly and uncomfortable. And as a journalist, I was surprised that none of my peers asked what happened or if I had some kind of condition. I guess the newness of school and the people overrode the curiosity of a journalist...

Today, I have no scars. My hair and eyelashes and eyebrows are back, and I even laugh about the whole incident. But about two months after it happened, I tried to bake cookies and cried the entire time. I still refuse to turn on the oven and every time I leave the apartment, I check and double check that the burners are off, even if I haven't cooked anything in days.