Poisoned

Yesterday morning around 10 am I noticed a funny smell in the kitchen. It was really strong and made me nauseous. I tracked it to the front burner of our stove. A few weeks ago something had boiled over on said burner. In attempting to get some of the black off Ryan had poured lemon juice on it the night before to soak. I figured it was reacting and creating the foul odor. I spent about 45 minutes scrubbing it. The smell didn’t go away. I opened the kitchen window a crack for a few hours. The smell seemed to be gone and the heater was running pretty non stop, so I closed the window. A few hours later I noticed the smell again and decided to have Ryan try scrubbing the stove when he got home.

As the day wore on I got pretty sick. By the time Ryan got home I had a headache, was queasy, and achy. Caden had cried over everything all afternoon and I told Ryan I thought he was getting sick as well. We put the kids to bed and Ryan played Wii with a friend of his who stopped by. By the time we went to have dinner Ryan was feeling ‘blah’ as well so we just heated up some leftovers.

At 10:30 as we were headed to bed Ryan got a drink of water from the kitchen sink, as is his routine. He noticed the knob on the burner was turned on – emitting gas. He turned it off and jokingly said to me, “no wonder you’ve felt sick all day – you’ve got carbon monoxide poisoning! That nasty smell was the rotten egg smell they put into the gas so people will notice it.” We figure Caden must have turned the knob, so Ryan took them all off and hid them in the drawer. Then we foolishly went to bed.

At 2 am Eric woke up to eat. I was so sick I could barely feed him. The act of me getting up woke Ryan up. After Eric ate he just laid and fussed in his crib – very unusual for the boy who has always gone right back to sleep after eating. Ryan and I complained to each other about being sick, and started to put two and two together. We had never aired out the house once we discovered and fixed the gas leak. After 45 minutes I tried once more to nurse Eric and put him to bed. While I was nursing him I read up on CO2 poisoning. Everything said essentially “go straight to the ER, there is no at home treatment.”

I put Eric, who continued to fuss, back in his crib. Ryan and I sat on the bed for 20 minutes discussing our options and praying. Do we wake Caden up and spend the rest of the night in the ER? We figured that would cost at least $4,000 and make us too tired to function today. Ryan had a big day at work, and I had a meeting and doctors appointments for both boys planned. Do we just open the windows and hope that in airing out the house we get better? But what about the fact that every single website said you must seek treatment? After many prayers and much discussion we opted to air out the house and wait until morning to go to the ER. As soon as we made that decision Eric quit fussing and fell asleep.

We put extra blankets on the boys, turned the fireplace on and the furnace off, and proceeded to open every window in the house and the door to the garage. Feeling at peace we both went back to sleep, still pretty sick.

Both boys woke up earlier than normal this morning, but are happy. Ryan and I both feel better, aside from the lack of sleep. Today we are feeling blessed and watched over. The CO2 detector we've been meaning to buy for a few years just got bumped to the top of the priority list. The knobs will stay off the stove for a while, and I'll be more alert if I ever smell that repulsive rotten egg odor again.