ER Visit

Friday, November 16th was a pretty eventful day.  Caleb stayed home from school because he came home from school Thursday with a temperature that lasted all through the night.  We think he had a run-in with the flu, because he was sick for the next 5 days or so with fevers, chills, and muscle aches.  Ironically, the day we kept him home from school was the day I had his flu shot scheduled at 3:45pm.  I just completely spaced getting their flu shots before flu season with preparing for the baby.  Carter got his shot a few days earlier when I was at a doctor's appointment with Bryson.  

About 11am, Caleb joined me upstairs to change Bryson's diaper while Carter was watching a TV show.  Let me back up and say a few days earlier, Carter went to the park with Aunt Ariane and cousins, Dallin and Gavin and stepped in an ant pile.  He got several bites on his legs and a few on his arm, so when he came home, I put anti-itch cream on and gave him some Benadryl so the bites wouldn't swell.  Because the medicine is old, there is some crusted medicine that prevents the lid from locking.  It was just laziness that we hadn't cleaned it up so that the lid would lock.  

So while Caleb and I were upstairs, he must have seen the Benadryl out on the counter (where I had neglected to put it away still), and decided he wanted some more.  He had seen Caleb taking medicine regularly the night before and that morning to keep his fever down, so perhaps this played into it.  He pushed over a chair, drank some, then came to me in Bryson's room with shiny lips.  I immediately asked him what he had found to drink because we only have water and milk in the house.  When he told me he drank some medicine, I started to panic.  I could not be positive how much was in the bottle prior to him drinking it, so after talking to poison control and deducing it was possible he could have had up to 2 oz., we headed to the ER.  (The ER is the last place I wanted to take my two-week-old baby!  Even the nurse told us to wash our hands carefully and not to trust that the room was clean.)  Because Carter was acting normal, first I nursed the baby, then fed us all lunch knowing we would probably be at the hospital for awhile.  Carter started falling asleep on the way over to the hospital, and I had to give him candy to stay awake.  Funny tidbit: he brought a sword (stick connected to a pants hangar) with him to the hospital in order to fight the doctor.  He felt he needed a sword to protect him after I talked to him about the consequences of drinking medicine.

After getting checked in and going to a room, a nurse put stickers on Carter's chest and finger to check his vital signs.  Everything seemed normal.  A doctor came to check him out and prescribed some charcoal mixed with chocolate milk to help neutralize the medicine.  The drink must have tasted very yucky, as I imagine charcoal would, because Carter did not like drinking it at all.  The nurse said we couldn’t leave until he finished this large cup of it, then left us to it.  It was so aggravating trying to get Carter to drink it.  He was in a bad mood because he was tired and extra tired due to the Benadryl.  He kept trying to rip off the stickers on his body, and he got mad at Caleb for every little thing.  Prior to the charcoal drink, he had done pretty well.  Bryson slept for the whole visit up until 1:30pm when he woke up to nurse.  So I had to stop giving Carter his drink in order to nurse the baby.  I asked Caleb to continue feeding Carter so that we could get out of there faster!  Carter refused to let Caleb help, so I asked Caleb to press the nurse button so that she could feed Carter.  I was hoping not to waste time and thinking that he probably would drink it better from a stranger than from me.  Carter threw a fit that Caleb pressed the nurse button, and in the process of this tantrum, he knocked over his drink, which spilled all over his seat.  He had only finished about 1/5^th of the drink so I was worried that he would have to start over (and not to mention cost us more money!).  But the doctor said he didn’t think Carter could have taken very much medicine since his vital signs were still steady 3 hours after he drank the medicine.  He said we could go ahead and get checked out.

About an hour later, due to some other emergencies and some miscommunication, we finally left the hospital.  Caleb and Carter fought like cats and dogs during that time, and Bryson was not happy and needed to be held.  It was such a difficult and exhausting afternoon!  And I know I was judged by many people who walked by our room wondering why I couldn't control my boys' behavior.  I was trying my best, believe me.  I was very touched that one of the cleaning women, who only spoke Spanish and had walked by our room a few times, tried to help the situation by bringing in some toys to entertain the boys.  The room did have a TV, but it failed to hold their interest after we'd been there a few hours.  

With all of that said though, I’m grateful that this incident wasn’t more serious.  I’m grateful that I came home from the hospital with all three of my precious boys instead of just two.  Carter is mischievous and stubborn and gives me a run for my money, but he has other precious moments that I want to bottle up because they’re so cute.  We’re glad he’s apart of our family and hoping that these antics are a stage that he’ll grow out of.  He’s definitely helping us reevaluate our parenting to try to teach him to make good choices.  This experience was a powerful lesson for both of us about consequences.  I should have put the medicine away and made sure the lid locked.  And Carter needed to learn that we don’t drink medicine if we’re not sick!