Our Lives
I was enjoying a quiet, cosy Christmas with my pups when disaster struck.
Sinking on to the sofa, I turned on my favourite Christmas film, Love Actually.
It was a film I usually watched with my boyfriend Michael, but after an argument a few days earlier, we had both agreed to spend some time apart.
He’d gone to his parents for the rest of the festive season, while I stayed at home with my three dogs — Boston terrier Charlie, Pomeranian Bailey, and my four-month-old Rottweiler called Rory.
I’d never wanted children so they filled that gap in my life and I doted on them. And on Christmas Eve, I spent a quiet day at home with my pooches.
After dinner, I wrapped a blanket around me and sat in my doorway watching them play in the garden. I lit up a cigarette and called my mum, Debbie.
‘I wish I was with you this year,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she replied. ‘But there’s always next time.’
Moments later, Rory excitedly bounded past me. But as he did, he knocked my cigarette into my lap. And whoosh! I went up in flames.
‘Oh my God!’ I screamed. I quickly threw the blanket on the ground, but my trousers were on fire and I frantically tried to pat out the flames as they spread up my legs.
The heat was intense and the pain excruciating.
In the end, I wriggled out of them and threw them to the ground where the flames finally fizzled out. My legs were already starting to blister.
‘What’s going on?’ I heard Mum ask, but in a panic, I hung up and rang for an ambulance.
‘You need to come now!’ I screamed, before staggering into the house.
Every step was agony and when I reached my bedroom, I blacked out.
When I woke, paramedics were there.
‘You’re OK,’ one said as they gave me pain relief.
They put the dogs in their crates and stretchered me into an ambulance.
As we sped to the hospital, I lost consciousness again and didn’t come around until Christmas morning.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked a nurse, feeling confused.
‘You’re in a burns unit,’ she explained. ‘You have suffered a severe injury.’
My whole body felt as if it was still on fire and I could see my right leg had been wrapped up in bandages.
When a doctor came to see me, he said: ‘You’ve suffered serious third-degree burns to your right leg.’
He told me I’d need some operations and they would include skin grafts.
Panicking, I called Michael and told him what had happened.
Instantly, our silly fight was forgotten and he agreed to take care of the dogs.
When he came to visit me in hospital soon after, he said: ‘I wish there was something I could do to help.’
But knowing he
