Piercing Your Egg

In April of 2004, a nine-year-old girl who reheated a boiled egg in a microwave for 40 seconds. About 30 seconds later, when she was carrying the egg, the egg exploded, hitting her in the right eye and face.

The shrapnel from the scalding egg tore open her cornea, the transparent coating that covers the iris and pupil, and caused the lens of her eye to cloud over so she could see only hand movements. Several months later, her vision was restored, but only after two operations in which her cornea was stitched and her damaged lens replaced with a plastic one.

A team of opthalmologists made an appeal in a letter to the British Medical Journal for microwave manufacturers to put warnings on the microwaves themselves to help people be more aware of the dangers of microwaving food that has a closed shell.

Microwave manufacturers do warn people to pierce intact eggs several times before heating them. But the warnings appear in leaflets that many consumers toss aside without notice, says Saurabh Goyal, an opthalmologist at Queen Mary's Hospital in Kent, UK, and one of the letter's authors.

How does an exploding egg relate to balance and self-care for people helpers?

Some people helpers serve in extreme conditions. Perhaps their lives are in constant danger. Or they can't easily get away from their work because they serve overseas in a remote area without a mode of transportation to get away from it all occasionally.

Some people helpers are just plain over busy. The demands of the job pull at them around the clock. There seems to be no escape. They have prioritized their "to do" list and all 400 items are A1 priorities.

Your personal "relief valve"

To prevent explosion of the soul, build in a personalized method to "pierce the shell". Some call this a "relief valve" - a way of releasing the tension brought on by the demands of a people-helping profession. Examples include fly-fishing, taking a walk and praying, playing the piano, working a crossword puzzle, and so on. The key is to find what works for you and take advantage of your relief valve - and you'll be Serving Strong!