Seriously, I know we all have those events.
So how do you recover from them?
A couple years ago we were together for Thanksgiving with the whole family in California. Cousins and aunts and uncles and grandkids running around having wonderful family time.
My Aunt and her family were staying at my Grandma's house and my Aunt has rheumatoid arthritis. R.A. is an autoimmune disease that can be and usually is very painful. It may sometimes be managed (for a short time) by exercise, weight loss and eating healthy, but usually when someone is diagnosed with R.A. it is because of the pain and stiffness they are feeling.
So yes, my aunt has RA. Well, she takes quite a few pills every day to help her R.A. I am not sure what they are but here are a few that people may take with R.A.
Imuran (INFO)
Ridaura (INFO)
Plaquenil (INFO)
Arava (INFO)
Methotrexate (INFO)
and many many more....
Seriously, click on some of the links to see how serious these drugs are. Not to mention these are just the ones that help to treat the R.A. We also have to know that often there are heavy duty pain pills for people with Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Back to the near miss... Thanksgiving night rolls around after a full day of playing and fun at Grandma Grape's house (great grandma) I get a phone call from my Aunt. She is concerned because she can't find her pills. She had already called my sister and alerted her. She had talked to her son and he said, "I think Ryann ate the pills"
In a fit of hysterics I ran downstairs, threw open my daughter's door and shook her awake. The nurse in me grabbed a flashlight and looked for pupil dilation. They were equal, round, reactive to light, etc. I then listened to her heart and lungs, and I asked her if she knew what happened to the medicine.
She had no idea what was going on.
It took some time, prayers, tears, and looking up the number for poison control "just in case" before I would let her go back to bed. She promised she didn't eat the pills (or any candy, because come on- some pills look like candy!) but I didn't fully believe her since she was only 2 and maybe she was just saying what I wanted her to say??
The next morning my nephew fessed up that he had taken the pills and put them somewhere else. We found the pills and all the pills were accounted for. Everyone was fine. Everyone lived.
I got my first grey hairs, but we all were fine physically. Emotionally I was still a wreck.
This was one of the scariest "near miss" events that I had. I hate thinking about this event so much that I haven't spent the time to teach my daughter about pill bottles and medicine. WHY NOT? Am I not trusting enough that we can both handle it?
So here is my goal today. Today I am going to head on over to Walgreens, buy a pill box, fill it with pills (NOT CANDY!) and teach my daughters that they are NEVER allowed to eat things out of these pill boxes unless mommy gives it to them.
What can you do today that will help you trust yourself and your children? Do you have any near miss experiences that we can learn from?
1 comment:
I have 7 kids, so I have had a few. Once we were cleaning up for guests on Christmas morning. My husband had extra strength tylenol out, and I had placed it in a basket to take upstairs quickly. I was busy finishing the dusting when I heard a shake shake shake. My 11 month old daughter was upstairs, and I immediately knew. I ran up and found a bunch of pills on the floor and the color of melted pill in her mouth. She spit out the pill in her mouth, but we went to the ER anyway. She was tested and found to be fine. Ugh! I have also had near drowning incidents twice. Once I was in labor and my 6 year old was in a tube at a friends' neighborhood pool. No lifeguard. I kept checking the clock, and missed her slip down in the ring. A woman I didn't know grabbed her because she spotted what I could not see from my angle. Another daughter was on a slide at a pool, it had two different slide exits. My husband and I were waiting on one side for her to come down. With the sun at the back of the slides, we couldn't see which one she was going down. We waited, and she didn't come out on our side. Another child came down. We waited a moment more as another child came down. My husband casually walked to the other slide, only to find our little girl under water just below the lifeguard. He pulled her up and she spewed water all over his face. She was limp and lips were blue. He carried her to the manager's office and she went to the hospital, she was okay. It was very frightening. The combo of crazy busy pool and the sunset with a lifeguard not looking at the children was nearly deadly.
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