Memory Monday: Lions and Tigers and SUNBURNS OH MY!

I figured that for the end of the summer blog I should remind myself of the most painful, horrible sunburn I have ever had! My roomies and I went to San Juan Puerto Rico this March for a few days.... We got to visit the 3rd most beautiful beach in the whole world.

This is me at 5:00 am ready to go to a beach.. I was excited! To go to this Beach we had to get up at 4:30 am to buy tickets in a city about 1 hour away. We then had to go by boat to the "secluded beach."(it took about 1 hour by speed boat). Oddly enough while waiting in line we found out that the 2 girls in front of us in line (they are on the bottom left of the picture above) were also Mormon. How on earth did we find the Mormon girls in a group of many on the boat?! Well the picture above is all the LDS girls that had csme together to go to Culebra too! We instantly bonded with them!On the speed boat my roommate Megan Ennis got very ill and this is her leaning over the boat ready to loose it (there were many other people all over the boat doing the same thing!) The driver thought he was in the indy 500 and we were hitting HUGE waves and were all drenched wet and sick when we finally arrived. By the way, do you see the bottle of rubbing alchol being passed? The natives gave us that. Apparently it is a cure for sea sickness... and it works WONDERS!

When we arrived there, I honestly thought I had arrived in Heaven! GORGEOUS!

Yes, this is all white sand beach... fine sand and see through waters! To tell you the truth regular oceans scare me to death cause you can't see what is around you... I rarely left these waters the hours we were here!

I'm pretty sure my sunburn began on the boat... and this 25 min of laying on the beach just sealed the deal.. added to my 3 hours playing in the ocean....I wasn't the only one that got beat up from the sun! We all had our own severities... take a look at the first stages...

We showed up at a rite aid in San Juan searching for some Aloe vera... you should have seen all of us wobbling in, our bodies in the shakes, with the teeth chattering! We were trying to figure out how to say Aloe Vera in spanish. We laughed so hard and had to take a picture because when we walked in the door, forget the language barrier, or dear girl friends at rite aid new what we needed and handed it to us.. we were pathetic looking... as you can see!


This is Stephanie Nelson..aka Ghetto. Her burn was concentrated to her upper thighs and on her face (her lips got all swollen...HUGE!) She ended up in urgent care the 2nd day after we got home!Jon Portie's was all over his back. Don't ask me how he did it, but his wore off with minimal pain.Bethany Stewart (or "B") showed this part of her sunburn but by the time we got back to Orem her blisters were the size of silver dollars all over her legs. She went to urgent care straight off the plane!If she would let me get a hold of the nasty pictures of her burn I would post them! I don't think I will see anything like that in my life! As smiley as this picture looks.. I was absolutely miserable. But my burn kept progressing... my body had a major sun reaction and I ended up with 3rd degree (blackish burns)across my biceps. My bicepts felt everyday like some one was taking a hold wrench and turning my skin tighter and tighter. I had so much applying of creams and gels and so much cleaning that needed to be done to the blisters and amazingly enough my brand new roomie of a week or so, Teresa Allen, attended to me several times a day to relieve some discomfort! Thanks Teresa!

By day 3 after being burnt I was in agony. My Mom and my brother were both out of town and my roommates were miserable so I call my BFF Jen to come down from Salt lake and take me to urgent care. My blisters were on my shoulder and they were tiny and all over... they would pop all day. I was a mess! As graphic and ugly as all these pictures are, I want to depict why I am never going to go in the sun without adequate protection again!

Me and all my millions of blisters!The side view for a 3 demensional look (SICK!)

Trying to take a decent picture of what my face (that looked like I had severe leprosy) really looked like!But in reality I had really HAD IT! The pain was aggrevating and the discomfort immense. I took this at 3 am after being awake all night... I was really crying and I took this picture so I would never forget the majesty of that sunburn.

All the ugly pictures aside there is one thing that I said to my roomies over and over again when we were first struggling with sunburns... I wish I had brought my Burn Free. When I worked at Emergency Essentials I sold this awesome product that is called BURNFREE® Pain Relieving Gel .

Add instant relief and halt the progress of burn injuries with this remarkable product! Made mostly of water, BurnFree is specifically developed for first-aid use on burns and scalds. It is used extensively by paramedics and burn centers across the country, and it’s even used by Hollywood stunt personnel. It will cool, soothe and moisten the burn as it relieves pain. It’s also completely non-adhesive, nontoxic, and won’t irritate skin. This amazing product is a first-aid kit essential and is exactly what you need for instant burn relief. Keep a supply at home and in your automobile, and don’t leave home without some extra BurnFree products on your next camping trip.

BURNFREE® Pain Relieving Gel is seriously amazing stuff and EVERY household should have it.

What it does is it STOPS the progression of the burn so that your body doesn't hold in all that heat! If I had had something to stop the progression of my burn ( it was prossing 5 days after) I would have never gotten my 3 degree burns on my arms. When I went to the Urdent care 3 days after we returned, the doctor had to give me steriods to stop the burn. All in all my urgent care bill was well over $200 (because I haven't met my deductible). First of course I wish I would have used adequate sun screen but then I wish my burnfree was in my bag. It is worth every penny and even if you or your child just burns themself on the stove... you will be thankful you have it! Get it at http://www.beprepared.com/ or your local Emergency Essential stores for $3.99 for a 4oz bottle.

The moral of this memory.... The sun is harsher in some places than it is in others. I wish I had been prepared with sunblock and my burn free.... the end!