God's Miracle for US This Christmas

Back in November when we first had to turn our heat on we noticed it smelled like gas. We called our gas company and the girl who answered the phone just said, 'Oh yeah, mine does that too. Give it a couple days and it will be ok'. Well, I'm no dummy. We've lived here for 12 years and we know the difference between a 'heat' smell and a 'gas' smell. So we've only turned the heat on here and there, just enough to take the chill off when needed.



But the past couple of weeks we've had it on a bit more. We still smelled the gas smell but thought maybe it was because we needed to replace our filter or maybe we had the bookshelf in front of the vent too close, or, or, or...



But then the headaches started. All 6 of us. And sleeping until 9 and 10 o'clock in the mornings, which we never do. Then Sweetie and I, being so sleepy, would nap through the day. We just thought it was lack of good sleep and/or stress. A couple of days ago Princess slept until noon! Now, if I'd have only known...



A couple days ago Sweetie knew we had the heat on when he got home because he could smell it when he got to the front porch. Many nights we would turn it on just to get the chill off, then turn it off out of fear for the kids. Monday night Sweetie got up and smelled it so he turned it down to 65 degrees.



Why didn't we call about it again before now? I have no idea. But yesterday, with Handsome crying about his head hurting, Baby Girl on the couch saying she couldn't clean her room because she was so tired, me popping even more Excedrin, and Reece Cup running to the bathroom to throw up, I called the gas company. They sent someone out right away to check for carbon monoxide.



The guy, Joe, was so nice. He got his little tester out and it went crazy. I asked him what a 'normal' level was and he said, "Well, we don't like to see any, but the government says you can live with a level of 10." You guys, our carbon monoxide reading topped out at 176, and that was after the heat had been turned off for a little while!! (I've since found this statement on the Consumer Product Safety Comission website..."As CO levels increase above 150 to 200 ppm, disorientation, unconsciousness, and death are possible".) I couldn't help it, I lost it. I told him, "I'm not afraid to tell you that we're church-going, praying people and we pray with our children every night for God to put a hedge of protection around us..." and I couldn't finish because I was choked up. Joe said, "Well, we're God-fearing people too, and now you've got me crying." I saw him wipe tears from his eyes as we both realized what could have happened and what God had saved us from.



Reece Cup threw up again while he was here. He said that I needed to get him to the doctor, so I called our doctor's office. They said that we all needed to get to the emergency room ASAP. After Joe saw Reece Cup throw up he called in and 3 BIG WIGS from the gas company came to our house.



So after all the gas guys left and Sweetie got home we headed to the ER. They got us in right away, had several people working us all up at one time and took our blood to check our levels. And just a little extra praise thrown in here... NONE of the kids cried or even whimpered when they took their blood!



Anyway, my level was the highest, then Sweetie's, then Handsome's. So the three of us were put on 100% oxygen with the mask. The other three had those little tube-thingies in their noses. We were all on oxygen for 3 hours.



This picture, while not my favorite of myself by far, now haunts me because this is how we had been feeling lately. This was taken Monday afternoon before we were aware of what was haunting us.






And here are us girls at the ER with our Oxygen going. I couldn't get a picture of the boys because they were in another room getting their oxygen.





Please, please heed this warning parents. If you don't already have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home, do so today! If you have one but it's not been checked recently, please do so now. You don't even have to have gas heat like we do. Carbon monoxide can come from different sources, and isn't it worth the small investment to have the peace of mind that your family is safe from this silent killer? You can read more about CO and CO detectors here.