Long time no post--Hip Replacement then Fire destroyed home

[mnhtnbb]

On Aug 6th this 56 yo woman had her right hip replaced. If anyone out there is considering the procedure, PLEASE don't sign up to be cut up until you investigate exactly which procedure your surgeon is planning on doing. There are several ways to do a hip replacement, and the recovery time can vary significantly depending upon which procedure--and which implant--you choose. PM me if you want details.

On Aug 28th, three weeks post surgery, with recovery going well, I was returning to bed after a 4:30 a.m. bathroom visit, thinking, "gee the sky is awfully orange for this time of the...FIRE!!!

Flames were shooting up outside our third floor bedroom window, apparently from our main level deck. I flew down the stairs--no cane, no shoes--to get to my 17 yo son's room immediately adjacent to where the fire seemed to be. Hubby dashed outside to fight the fire with puny garden hoses. My son had been wakened by the smoke alarm outside his room, and he was coming upstairs where we met in the living room. I grabbed two portable phones, my purse by the door, and we headed out the front door with our 13 yo dog, dialing 911. The FD was there within 5 minutes of being called--boy, that was a long 5 minutes--and when they went in the house it was already too hot to fight it. They had to back off and work defensively to keep the whole very, dry, wooded, neighborhood from going up in flames. They succeeded. There were almost 60 firefighters and 7 or 8 trucks there fighting the fire. By 6:30 a.m. the local Red Cross had arrived with a debit card for us to use for necessities. We spent four days with one of our neighbors, then two weeks at another neighbor's who was going out of town. We're now in a rental house in the same neighborhood. Some of you may know we've been building a retirement house in Panama--not finished--and the furniture that has been in storage waiting to be shipped to Panama is now in our rental house in Chapel Hill. No ocean view, but it works! :crazy:

We've lost everything: passports, financial records, tax returns, marriage license, social security cards, birth certificates...you name it, it's gone. Our insurance adjuster showed us how to salvage photos from albums that looked like a total loss: we removed the photos and laid them out to dry on the garage floor (separate from the house and not destroyed). Our neighbors helped--God bless'em--and at some point we'll make copies. A few things from the kitchen have been salvaged, and a few things from hubby's home office which was least destroyed. The house is a total loss and will have to be razed.

We were lucky to get out alive. The fire spread FAST. We've had drought in NC, the house is wood, the deck is wood (and no, we don't know what started it, although we're suspicious of a cookout we had 36 hours prior to the fire)and it became an inferno in a matter of minutes.

So, mods, please don't move this post. Everyone, please, make copies of important documents and put them in a safe place--not a file cabinet in your house! If you have treasured photos, make copies and send them to family members for safe keeping. And please, please, keep those batteries current in your smoke detectors!