We made it through another October.

I don't know why but October has always been a bad luck month in our family. This October Jeff lost his job, Cameron decided our bathroom is haunted, and was in the hospital with Pneumonia. We always have something happen during the month every year. Sometimes it is worse than others.

Some past years that I can remember are Jeff being in the hospital with his first really bad kidney stones and Cameron's first Halloween which was also spent in the hospital. Cameron actually spent most of the holidays during his first 2 years in the ER for some reason or another.

One Halloween our house caught on fire and we almost died. We went to sleep after trick or treating. The furnace malfunctioned and filled the house with carbon monoxide and smoke. The smoke detector didn't go off even though the battery had just been changed. The carpet caught on fire and was just starting to spread when I woke up. I shouldn't have been able to wake up with the amount of smoke I had been breathing. My grandma said my grandpa saw what was happening from heaven and grabbed my big toe and told me to get the hell out of that house.

I opened my eyes and all I could see was smoke. I hit Jeff and yelled FIRE! and took off for Taylor's room. He was just a baby at the time and our only child back then. Thank goodness the fire hadn't spread very far yet so I grabbed the baby and headed for the door. Jeff followed behind with the phone and called the fire department. They were great. They got there super fast and got the fire out very quickly. It didn't have time to do much damage. They put us on oxygen to help us breath better and we had to take Taylor to the doctor to have him checked out for carbon monoxide poisoning.

We were all fine but it was really scary. Taylor started having night terrors after that about the house. We moved right after the fire but the dreams continued for years. During the time that we lived there the big tree in the backyard got hit by lighting and fell on the house. Also the next door neighbors had lots of big scary dogs that would bark all night. So Taylor would have night terrors about the big dogs in the trees and the trees were gonna get him and he had to run in the dark.

So we survived the fire and we have now survived another October. You know if you have never been in a fire you might wonder: what would I take with me? If I had to get out quick but I stopped to grab a few things what would they be? I already know that answer. No things. I didn't even think about it or try to go back in. I just wanted my family out and safe. How lucky that we are all here together and safe.