I was burnt in a kitchen fire on the 28th February this year.
I`ve healed quicker then "they" say I should have, physically maybe...

Four days prior to the burning I`d had an urge to paint, so paint I did. My two best paintings in fact.
The first was of Kali emerging from fire, absolutely beautiful in Warrior mode. Around the edges of her frame I`d painted the words "Death", "Destruction" and "Rebirth".
The second was of a crow perched above but also being consumed by flames. Across that one I`d painted Hecates name, around the edges I painted "Oh Great Mother".

I`d set up a Fire Altar with the one of Kali, in my bedroom, decorated it with skulls and kept the candles burning.
I`d hung Hecate facing the front door as protection.
Looking back now, I had alot of self installed protection around me, in my bedroom especially, the room I was soon to spend the next 3 months of my life hostage in.
I`d stuck a tree branch which was shaped as a protection symbol, on my wall, I had each of my Goddess cards lined up along my window sill. An Isis crystal above my bed and a rock that I`d painted the protection symbol on guarded my door.
I was preparing for something.
The night of the fire I was working on a timber book cover, burning a Fire Goddess into it infact, for a friend, I finished burning the Goddess, it was 1am.
I took a break, made a coffee, wrote a shopping list for the next day, packed up everything I needed to be mailed in the morning and put them in bags by the front door.
I walked through the house feeling really serene, checked my kids, Dan, Bek and Nat sleeping peacefully in their beds, my boyfriend,Ben had fallen asleep on the lounge waiting for me to finish working.
I lit a candle in every room.

I went back to the Goddess cover, I finished sanding her, I admired her for a while,wondering about the defiant look she had in her eyes, it was 2:30 am.
I suddenly had an insane craving for puppadoms, of all things. I HAD to have them.

I put the Goddess cover on the table and headed off to cook some puppadoms, it took me 5 minutes to find the oil, which seemed to have hidden itself at the back of the cupboard, but I would have searched all night, I WANTED puppadoms!!
I put the oil in a pot, turned up the heat and wandered off to put a quick layer of lacquer on the Goddess cover while the oil heated.
That was my first mistake.
And that`s where my life as I`d known it ended. Never to be the same again.
I wish I had of paid more attention to my thoughts that night.
I wish I`d realised how free I actually was.
I wish I`d known they WERE my last moments as such.
The physical, mental and emotional freedom and strength I`d enjoyed throughout my life.

Physically, Mentally and Emotionally, I was about to be destroyed.

I finished the coat of lacquer, it wouldn`t have taken longer than a minute, fuck it takes 5 minutes for the hotplate to heat up!
I turned toward the kitchen, there was a flashing of red light from the doorway, I had absolutely NO idea what it was, I went into the kitchen, expecting some Divine moment I think, the noise in there was like being at the ocean, it was roaring, deafening. There was a cascade of fire going from the pot straight to the exhaust fan which was directly above the pot, the wall behind the stove was on fire and the ceiling as well.
I grabbed a towel from the laundry, ran back into the kitchen and threw it at the pot.
That was my second mistake.
I didn`t let go of the other end of the towel, so as one would expect, it flicked back at me, now covered in oil and on fire, bringing the pot of oil along with it, which ended up all over me, catching my pyjamas on fire.
I don`t remember exactly what happened then, but I ended up in the loungeroom rolling in a pile of clothes, trying to put myself out, still on fire, hitting myself, not able to make a sound. I stood up and started pulling my clothes off.
I had ONE MOMENT where I`d actually thought I WAS going to die. It was no grandiose moment either, no flashing of my life before my eyes, no glorious bright lights, no tunnels and I certainly wasn`t farting rainbows!
I remember looking at myself, almost as if I were an onlooker, I felt winded and kind of empty, the ONLY thoughts going through my head at that time were "get fucked, this is IT" followed by a resigned "this is just fucked".
I got my pants off, by that time my top was out, I was hurting but I wasn`t, I was seriously out of breath, I tried yelling for Ben to wake up cos the kitchen was still on fire, it came out the same as in those dreams you have where you try to scream but nothing comes out.
By this time smoke had filled the house and the fire alarms were going off. Ben woke up, I told him the kitchen was on fire, I`d been burnt and we had to get out. He took off into the kitchen, I tried to yell at him not to but he disappeared into the smoke. I grabbed the phone off the table and ran up the hallway banging on and falling against the walls. I woke Dan and the girls and we all got outside,except Ben.

As soon as we got outside my legs really started to burn, I got the hose and tried keeping it on myself while I rang for the fire brigade, Ben still wasn`t out, I was trying to be coherant to the operater but I was fucked, I couldn`t think of my street name, and what the fuck WAS the nearest crossroad???
Just as Ben came out and yelled, "It`s out, don`t worry about it", I was about to hang up when I looked down on myself as I got back into the light and said "Oh my God, I need an ambulance, I`ve been burnt".

I passed the phone to Ben, he got thru to the ambulance, Dan grabbed the hose from me and told me to go to the shower NOW, the girls started to lose it.
I waited for Ben to finish with the ambulance, I rang mum and said "You need to come to my house right now, I`ve been burnt, hurry" and hung up.
I walked as calmly as I could back into the house, straight to the shower with my girls in tow, Dan went straight to his room.

I got into the shower and fuck wasn`t it THE best feeling of relief I`d ever felt. It was great

The girls were crying, they`d had a horrible shock,they`re only 9 and 11, they`d been woken up by a hysterical mother, then seen what I hadn`t even looked at yet, my arms and legs were a mess, it was 3 in the morning and their house had nearly burnt down.
I was freaking out about them with smoke inhalation and I didn`t want to go into shock and pass out or something in front of them and scare them even more, so I told them I had to go to hospital for stronger panadol cos I had lots of burns instead of one or two that people usually get.
I must have sounded convincing, they seemed happy with that, I told them to go into their room and shut the door,open the windows and turn the fans on so the smoke didn`t get them.
Ben came in, I asked him for a cigarette and a bong, which calmed me considerably.
I still hadn`t looked at myself properly and really didn`t want to.
I was starting to feel the worst pain I`d ever felt (UP UNTO THAT TIME). My legs and forearms were burning the most.
I started praying to the Goddess for the ambulance to hurry up. It was hard to stay on my feet and besides the burns, I was fucken FREEZING! I started shaking uncontrollably for a few minutes at a time every now and then and I was getting scared.
I didn`t know what was going on and HOW the fuck were they going to fix this shit?
What was going to happen?
WAS I going to fucken die anyway?
COULD this shit kill you?
I started to freak a bit. Mum got there, came into the bathroom with a smile on her face and started saying "What have you done now you silly woman?", her face totally crumbled when she looked into the shower recess. I asked her "Is it bad?", the look in her eyes said it all, so what do I do?
I fucken look.
It was FUCKED. It took me a minute to realise that the black GOO DRIPPING FROM MY ARMS AND DOWN MY LEGS was actually my own burnt skin and flesh. THAT was the most fucked feeling I`ve EVER had. I wanted out. Out of my body, out of everything. I wanted out of the whole situation.
I said to mum that it must look worse than it is, she started crying and went to get me another cigarette.
I could see red and blue lights flashing on the walls, "thank fuck" I thought, the ambulance! I was almost excited. Mum came back in with my cigarette and said it was the fire brigade. Fucked if I know why they turned up, I told them it was out. That annoyed me so much at the time.
I started praying to the Goddess again, casting blue healing lights around myself, telling mum how important it was that I didn`t go into shock, (although I was already in it,by this time I was shaking uncontrollably and continually.) I got mum to wet a towel and put it around my shoulders to try and keep me warm, all the while standing in a freezing shower, babbling on about how important it was that I didn`t go into shock.
Red and blue flashing lights again.
Yay, I get excited, by now I just want to be knocked the fuck out, I`m freezing, I`m tired and I`d like to deal with this later if that`s ok! In come the police, I almost cried.
WHERE the fuck is was the ambulance?!
I started praying to the Goddess again.

Then it occurs to me that once the ambulance arrives, I`ll be leaving the freezing water, great cos I`m cold, not so fucken great cos I don`t remember them having freezing showers in ambulances. This was gunna hurt like fuck.
I started willing the ambulance to go slow until I had some time to figure out how we`d get me to the hospital, (without going into shock of course!)
And as luck would have it, at that very moment I could hear the sirens coming in from the highway.
The ambos came into the bathroom, the chick jumped into the shower with me to check me out, I told her that unless she had enough tranquilisers to kill an elephant, I wasn`t going anywhere, she just smiled and said she`d look after me.

Because my arms were burnt mostly on the inside, where on would put a drip or needle, the outsides of my arms and hands were just fucken yuck, I can`t even describe it but they weren`t getting any needles in anywhere and because I`d spent so long in freezing water, my veins had all constricted, so after careful consideration they decided the best route to administer morphine would be UP MY FUCKING NOSE!
DUDES!
I can`t describe the feeling of that shit, I can`t even think about it, it was FUCKED, so anyway, 4 injections up my nose later, I`m off my fucking head but the pain hasn`t gone away.

Then it`s time to leave the shower, and start the most fucked journey of my life.They wet some sterile sheets and wrapped me in them, my hallway wasn`t wide enough for their bed thing, so I had to walk to the front door, past my girls, trying to hold it together for them and tell them I`d be home tomorrow, that was fucked.
It was actually the only time I almost cried.

By the time I got to the ambulance I felt like I`d been hit with the oil all over again, the sheets wrapped on me had gotten warm and it felt fucked! The pain was crazy.
Ben came in the ambulance with me, mum took the kids home with her, I was pumped full of morphine again up my fucking nose and all I wanted to be was unconscious but that wasn`t happening either.

I started convulsing half way to the hospital, the pain just fucked me.
The dude was breaking saline drip bags onto me, but they were room temperature and just made the burning worse.
This was fucked and I knew it.