Alive & Kickin'

We're home from the hospital now, and Katie is just fine. We ended up not having to stay for the full eight hours because Katie's vital signs were holding steady and if she was going to have any effects from the meds, it would have started at least an hour or so before she was released. The doctor said it was unlikely that she had taken any pills, or that they just didn't have any effect on her. Either way, she was good to go.

It was a good thing that the doctor released her when he did, too, because both Katie and Phil were getting very antsy at that point. It was close to bedtime and Katie always gets a bit whiny around then.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my earlier post that my mother had also neglected to feed Katie any lunch while she was at her house, so the poor baby was absolutely starving. Luckily, the doctor had told us that Katie could eat or drink anything she wanted while we were there, so I went to the cafeteria to get us all something to eat. I got us each a hot dog, and some milk, yogurt, and a Nutrigrain bar for Katie. Sadly, that wasn't enough to satisfy her hunger, so Phil ended up having to go to a vending machine to get her some cookies, too. The kid is like a bottomless pit sometimes.

Anyhow, long story short, we're home, Katie's fine, and now I must try to get some sleep. I have a big day of cleaning and purging ahead of me tomorrow.

Not My Idea of Fun

This morning, I had the bright idea to ask my mother to watch Katie for me so I could get a head start on my big weekend of cleaning. So, I took Katie to her and went back home to get started on my cleaning project. About three hours later, my mother called to tell me that Katie had gotten into her pills and that she was missing her Coreg.

I asked her if she had called Poison Control, and of course she hadn't. So, I hung up the phone and called Poison Control myself. They said that the medication wasn't as toxic as some other heart meds, but that because we didn't know exactly how many she had taken, she needed to go to the emergency room to be evaluated.

So, I called my mother back and told her to get Katie ready to go to the hospital and I headed over to pick her up. On my way, I called Phil to let him know what was going on, and I called my aunt to have her meet the other girls when they got off of the bus.

I picked Katie up and sped the entire way to the hospital, but I still got there too late. By the time they got Katie triaged and into a room (which was very quickly) it had been an hour since my mother found her with the pills. The doctor said that after an hour, the medication would no longer be in her stomach and would be into her blood stream. Since the Coreg takes a little while to start working, and peaks between 4-6 hours after ingestion, they wanted to keep her for eight hours for monitoring.

We are at the hospital now (thank God for Phil's wireless Sprint card) waiting for something to hopefully not happen. It's been more than three hours now, and Katie is not showing any signs of a reaction, so she probably didn't actually swallow any pills. But, they'll probably still make us stay for another 5-6 hours anyway. Just how we like to spend our Friday nights.

By the way, when we were getting settled into Katie's room here in the ER, one of the nurses was asking me about what happened and she quizzed me about Poison Control's phone number. I told her to let me think about it for a minute because I keep it posted on my refrigerator so it's always handy. Then I remembered it and told her. She said that I was a good mom for keeping it handy and that I wouldn't believe how many parents come into the hospital and have no clue about it.

If you don't already have the Poison Control phone number handy, please take this as a lesson and make sure you get it handy. Post it in a place where everyone can easily find it. Even if you have it programmed into your telephone, you should still post it in case you have a babysitter who doesn't know that or how to access it. In case you don't know the phone number, it's 1-800-222-1222.