Friday, June 1, 2012

Stupid, stupid, stupid Jerry

It's Friday and we are on an adventure that wasn't planned. I am sitting in the Littleton Hospital ER with Zack. I am writing this blog post from the blogger app on my iPhone.

So why are we in Littleton ER? Zack takes a medication every morning for his anxiety. Unfortunately the medication he takes comes in the exact same type of bottle and the medication is the same size and color as my blood pressure medication. So Zack ended up taking 600 mg of Labetalol this morning instead of his anxiety medication. That wasn't really good at all.

I didn't realize this until he had left for school. I figure it out because my BP medication was out of the drawer we keep the medications in and his anxiety medication was still in the drawer.

Once I realized it I called his pediatrician who had me call poison control. Poison control told me that he should be ok but it would better if he went to the ER to be monitored. I went to school and picked him up and took him to Littleton ER. He is absolutely fine and his BP hasn't gone that low. At it's lowest his BP was setting off the monitor alert but they didn't have to give him any medication to counteract the Labetalol. Hopefully I will be able to get him back to school as he really wants to go back because they are having end of school parties today.

Lesson learned for me is that I need to make sure the medications bottles are very clearly marked. The way it is now you need to read the prescription label. I need to mark the bottles so you can tell whose is whose. Or better yet I need to put one of the meds into a different kind of bottle. Zack is taking responsibility for taking his own medications so it is something that is important. Making a mistake like this is pretty darn easy, but it could be a dangerous mistake!!

Oh my - what a day it has been. But in the end run it is going to be OK!

Hope your Friday is better than mine!

Thanks and peace to all! ~ J.

3 comments:

Johanna said...

Oh wow!!!!What a scary situation!!!Glad everything's okay :)

Elasti-Girl said...

YIKES! I'm so glad this turned out ok. I can only imagine how HIGH your blood pressure got upon discovering the situation!

Arisa Hiraoka said...

WOW. GOOD EVERYTHING IS FINE. WHAT AN ALMOST.