I awoke today in the way no one wants to wake, with a fireman pounding
hard and constantly on the door saying, "Get out. There is a fire."

Steve had stayed asleep so he woke up to me yelling, "Get the ferrets
into a cage. There is a fire somewhere in the building."

While he did that I put all meds (human and ferret) into a pillow case,
ditto wallets, grabbed ferret food, too, and my sleeping braces and
got out, and Steve grabbed the ferrets and the lap tops. We were half
dressed so grabbed the rest of what was needed on the way out. (I
forgot a coat so wound up out there with a t-shirt over a nightgown
and jeans.)

Steve pulled out the car and the ferrets, in their carry cage went in
there.

If we had not kept the ferrets in a large cage while we sleep we'd
never have been able to get them out. As it was, Pivot, who has never
been through an emergency and is our youngest, was a bit afraid to
come out but finally let Steve grab her. The others were immediately
cooperative. There was a lot of shouting and there were sirens so it
must have been very frightening for Pivot.

Luckily, it was a small fire in the utility room with something failed
in there -- I don't have details yet.

So, an hour and half later the ferrets, Steve, and I were all back in
our home, safe and sound.

It's been a year of emergencies with 3 family members distributed over
3 generations rushed to hospitals, and two fine now on medications,
while the youngest is beginning to stabilize on meds for MS. Now
this...

DO practice fire drills. DO know where the essentials are and how to
grab them FAST -- and that obviously includes ferrets. DO have working
fire alarms. The fire company was not overly pleased with the behavior
of our building's alarm system. Nor were we. It is about a dozen years
old and it behaved like it does in failure mode when nothing is wrong,
going on and off in short bursts, long apart till it finally began
going off constantly hours later so people ignored it until a neighbor
on the way to the bakery where she works smelled smoke when she went
outside.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

[Posted in FML 6480]