Carbon Monoxide Scare

Tonight while we were giving the boys their bath I heard our CO detector going off in the basement. A rush of panic went through me! I yelled for Hubby to go check it out. He confirmed it was the alarm and called the gas company. I was tyring to stay calm because the boys were getting riled up from the commotion. Cenzo is a bit of a worrier (like me) so right away he wanted to know what was happening?What was that noise? And he said, "I nervous." Luccio had his little hands up to his ears listening intently to the alarm. I realized in that moment that everything I say or do affects them ENORMOUSLY!! So I tried to be reassuring and finished up the baths. I tried to hurry them along and dress them in case we needed to leave the house. Cenzo look up at me and said, "I afraid," with a quivering lip.

So, I took them both in my room and got them into jammies and snuggled them on my bed with blankets on. I told them the alarm was broken and Daddy was working on fixing it. That seemed to be enough of an explanation for Luccio. But Cenzo, remained unconvinced and let me wrap him in a blankie and sat curled on my lap. He hasn't done that in a long time!

We waited for the on-call gas man to come check it out and I tried to entertain the boys with funny stories and games. They loosened up and relaxed, until the wind started howling outside and then they resumed a bit of panic! If I wasn't so nervous myself I would have laughed!

The gas co. guy got to our house very quickly. He used a meter throughout the house and didn't detect any CO. He did get a very low reading of 3 ppm right inside the furnace. He said that was not abnormal, but we should get it cleaned. He thinks the detector may just need new batteries. I tried to be relieved and calmly got the boys settled into their beds. Of course I had to answer about a million questions about who the man was and what he had been doing, but then everyone went to sleep!

And I got on the Internet to research what I could about CO and detectors etc. I am extra freaked out because this isn't the first time this happened. Last winter we had it happen twice! One of the times the CO level was so high our whole family had to go to the ER for oxygen treatment. The boys were so tiny then and it was so scary!!! The ER doc told us that at that level of CO we would have only been able to survive about 8 hours in our house!!!! After that my parents bought us a new furnace. So we thought we were all set this winter. But now, "I afraid too."

I am going to call in the morning to get someone out here to clean the furnace. And we changed the batteries on the detector. It's just freaky because all day today I have had a terrible headache and while I was cleaning in the basement earlier I swore I smelled gas. But, I mentioned it to hubby and he investigated and hadn't smelled it. So when that alarm went off it was like a confirmation of my worst fears!! The last time we had the CO scare we were lucky that we had smelled gas which was leaking or we would never have detected the CO in the house. The person who came to fix he gas issue just happened to find the CO problem.

I do feel better after knowing there was no detectable level in the house. And we will sleep with windows slightly open. But, I can't wait to have that furnace cleaned and hope I can get someone here ASAP to do it!