Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight, and You Know What Comes After That...

   What comes after that? "Fire! Fire! Fire!" (It's song, you know.) And that's what we had the other night. 

  Wednesday night Ken and I were alone in the house, eating snacks, playing games, and watching late night TV, with our bedroom door closed, when Ken decided to go to the bathroom. He went out, closing the door behind him. In a second I heard him yell something about a fire. I jumped up and ran out of the room. As I opened the door I saw smoke curl around the edge, like everything was moving in slow motion. The first thing I saw was fire in Fuzzy's room, across the landing. Ken was screaming for Fuzz, but I knew Fuzz wasn't home, which I told Ken. I ran to the bathroom for a container of water and Ken ran downstairs for a bucket for water. Before I reached the bathroom, the lights went out. The electricity had gone. I was in complete darkness, and when I ran out with the water, which I got by feel, there was so much heat and smoke coming out of the room that I couldn't get anywhere near it. I threw the container at the room and ran back to the bathroom. Ken shoved a rechargeable light in my hand in the blackness. I kept getting it backwards and having no light, but in no time the blackness was so thick from smoke that it did no good anyway. I couldn't see a thing and I didn't know where Ken was. I  yelled for Ken. I heard him yell for me. But I couldn't see a thing and couldn't breathe. I ran into the bathroom again and threw the window up so I could breathe through the screen. I grabbed a towel and wet it to breathe through. Then I ran out of the bathroom again and yelled for Ken. I found I couldn't breathe through the towel. The air was so hot that every time I tried to breathe I could feel it burning my airways, throat and chest. I think I ran back to the bathroom window to breathe two, maybe three times. I yelled for Ken every time I went on the landing, and I could hear him yelling for me. But we couldn't see each other. All this happened in a couple of minutes. I kept trying to get away from the bathroom, find Ken and get out. but every time I breathed at the bathroom window and went back out, I got stopped by the heat and not being able to breathe and had to run back to breathe. I was just outside the bathroom screaming for Ken, but I was about to drop. I couldn't breathe. ***********************************************************************************   I actually learned from Ken today that he found me laying on the floor of the landing, and dragged me to the top of the stairs. I was getting impossible to drag, as he couldn't breathe and had little strength left. He had to go down to the first landing to breathe, himself. The neighbour was banging on the door and he managed to go the rest of the way down and let her in, and she then helped him get me on my feet and down the stairs. I had no idea I had actually fallen. I just remember thinking I was pretty close to it. I can't imagine how scared Ken was, with me nearly passed out, and him getting closer to it himself, and not able to get me out of there.************************************************************************************************************

Suddenly there was a woman's voice.  I could hear Ken say that I was on the landing. Someone grabbed me. Someone and Ken pulled me toward the stairs. I kept saying, "I can't. I can't.", as I was about to drop. I couldn't breathe. I was about to pass out. The lady kept saying, "Come on Tammy. You have to come. You can Tammy." She repeated it all the way down the stairs. Suddenly we were downstairs and at the back door and outside. 

   It was then I realized Ken was outside in his underwear. The next thing I know he had a bag of shorts we had bought on Monday, which had been left in the dining room, and he put a pair on. He gave me his jacket he also grabbed and had me put it on. I was only in a nightgown and slippers. It was about 30 degrees outside. We were taken across the street by the neighbour hero who had pulled me outside, and sat on the other neighbour's steps.

   We sat on our neighbours steps as our house burned. Ken kept pleading to himself, "Please get here in time, Please get here in time. Why aren't they getting here? Please put it out. Please put it out." Emma's friend Laurie walked out of nowhere, having ignored the authorities orders not to go to our house. She had been driving by and saw what she thought was our house on fire. She called Emma and verified it. 

  Laurie hugged us both and asked if we were okay. She refused to leave until things were put out. Emma was on Laurie's phone, telling me she and AJ were on their way. Fuzz was called, and burst into tears. I made Ken go to the car and get his winter coat, which luckily wasn't in the house. 

   I purposely didn't look at our house. I sat on the neighbour's step and listened to windows breaking from the heat. The firefighters arrived and starting hosing the room down.

   I started shaking badly, and feared I was going into shock. The neighbour whose steps we were sitting on gave me a blanket. I still shook, and didn't even feel that cold. I kept leaning on the railing, leaning on Ken. I thought I might pass out. The fire was put out fairly quickly, I suppose. We were asked some questions by firefighters. A couple of people asked if the paramedics had checked us. We said no, we hadn't seen them. Turned out they were a couple of houses down the street because nobody was allowed any further. Uh, squad, you're allowed! Somebody, Laurie I think, went and got them. The paramedics talked to me, and recommended I go to the hospital and be checked. I was so close to passing out that I finally decided maybe I should. Ken couldn't get the car out because of the firehoses, and AJ drove him to the hospital, while the paramedics took me in the ambulance.

  I spent the night in the ER, being checked for carbon monoxide, (Yes, I had inhaled a lot.), being put on 100% oxygen, having my lungs x-rayed, etc.

  Ivy was in Indiana, and didn't get told until the next morning. She still cried, even though I kept telling her we were okay. They finally decided to admit me, but it took until 1AM the next morning to get me in a room. I was released Friday evening, and Ken, who had slept in the hospital with me, even though he wasn't a patient, and I went to stay with Emma and AJ.

    Emma stayed a couple of hours after they took me to the hospital, waiting until she could get into the house. The actual fire didn't go past Fuzz's room, but our bedroom door was left open and our room is  very sooty. You may have seen my flowered bedroom wallpaper in previous posts, like the post about my Baps dolls and my black eye. Well it doesn't look like that any more. The landing, which is bigger than Fuzz's room, is a mess of soot and melted things, and wet near Fuzz's doorway.

  Emma grabbed both our laptops, cameras, and one of the first things she saw when entering our bedroom, Tammy the Doll. A very sooty Tammy, in the brand new white dinosaur shirt 'Emma the Doll' got her for Christmas. 

She's not melted. It's just a bad picture.

And my comb and brush! The ones I grabbed at the last second before they lost our bags in Paris. I've washed them, but my brush still stinks like smoke so badly. And my pillow. My only pillow that I have been sleeping on since I was 11, inside the pillow case Ivy embroidered for me, and an extra ticking, stinks of smoke so much that I might finally have to surrender it. Maybe I should have tried to get that Nordic Sleep Foss Flakes Medium Low...

  Fuzz, however, lost a computer, TV, clothes, shoes, and everything else that wasn't in the storage unit. 

  I am still having trouble breathing and have to take it easy. I have to use an albuterol inhaler several times a day. There's no way I can go in the house yet, for a couple of reasons. One is the smoke, and the other is emotional. Emma, AJ, and their friends Laurie and Erin went over to do some clean up and retrieve some things. Emma tells me I have lost two childhood items at least, that were displayed on the landing. As I said, the landing was affected by heat and smoke, not actual flames, which didn't go past Fuzzy's room. But several of the dolls you've seen posts on are encased in their own melted packaging. 

  So we are at Emma's indefinitely. I have my computer, but, even after cleaning all the soot off using 6 paper towels and Clorox cleaner, (I'm reminded of "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" when the old ladies are telling how no one never managed to clean the blood off the organ keys, "...and they used Bon Ami!"), still is so smoky it's causing me breathing problems doing this post. I've had to keep stopping. Doll-A-Day can resume while I'm here, but not until this thing airs out a lot more. 

  And the worst thing? For the almost 30 years we've owned our house the mortgage company has constantly changed, as one company sold our mortgage to another. And every time it changed hands, each company handled the taxes and insurance, which were figured into our mortgage payments. Except for the most recent company. For some reason, they didn't pay our insurance, and we were dropped by the insurance company while we were out of the country. Ken has been fighting with them ever since we got back and found out. They said they couldn't get anyone to insure us because of the 'lapse in payment'. "But you're the ones who let it lapse! Not us!" "We can't help you." So we were not insured. Putting the ceiling back into Fuzzy's room, putting the windows back in, all the water damage up and downstairs, all the lost things, all the clean up and things that have to be replaced because of smoke damage. We have to pay for it all. 

  So that's where we are. I just wanted everybody to know what was going on. I posted on the blog's Facebook page from the hospital, but I didn't know how to have done this from there with only a phone, even if I'd been up to it. So I'll see you soon, but no guarantees when. Sorry.