ER

I took Luke to the ER this morning. Greg has a daily prescription medication that he has to take and this morning he must have stepped on it by accident or something and broke the bottle. Later when I got up and was getting dressed in the bathroom Luke was playing on the floor. I was watching him most of the time and didn't see him put anything in his mouth, but when I bent over to pick him up I saw all these little pills on the floor and the broken bottle on the counter. I know Luke had been trying to get my necklace off the counter and he must have pulled some of the lose pills off with it. I checked his mouth and sure enough there was white stuff in his mouth, no pills for me to retrieve, just white stuff. I called Poison Control and they said that if he had taken more than one pill it would be toxic to him and that I should take him to the ER. I drove as fast as I could and broke my no cell phone while driving rule to call my mom and ask her to call Greg at work. When I walked into the ER I just burst into tears! I was a mess. Luke was sitting there acting perfectly fine and I was balling my eyes out. They were acting urgent and took us back right away and I saw a tech that I know and then one of our house supervisors came and was our nurse which made me feel a lot better! I know him well and he is a great RN. I didn't know the Dr who took care of us and I think he did a fine job, but it did seem like Andrew was coaching him a little bit so that made me extra glad to have him as our nurse.

We drew a blood level and Greg got there really quickly. They told us he would probably stay overnight for observation, maybe go home late evening today at the earliest. Then they put a tube down his nose into his stomach, took x-rays to make sure it was in the right place, and gave him a bunch of charcoal to bind with any remaining medicine. They didn't get quite all of the charcoal that they were wanting to down before the tube got clogged, but his blood levels were low enough and they had gotten most of it in him so they went ahead and took out the NG tube. Then they let me nurse him for a bit to calm him down because he wouldn't stop crying at that point.

While he was nursing I noticed that he had little red bumps popping up everywhere. I called Andrew back and told him about it and the Dr came back and looked Luke over again. They thought he was either allergic to Greg's med he had taken or to something they had mixed with the charcoal. They gave him some benadryl but when we were almost done giving it too him he coughed and then gagged and threw up a whole bunch, mostly milk and benadryl. So we gave him another dose, he tried to spit that one out but I think he got most of it. They told us that his blood work showed what would be a therapeutic amount of Greg's medication for a baby his age and weight so he should be ok and we could take him home if we wanted to, just monitor him closely and make sure to check him every 15 minutes and count his respiration's for the next 16 hours. We had already called my work to let them know that I would be late, possibly not coming in at all, so we called them back to let them know that I would just be a little late.

We went home and he nursed and snuggled with me. I am still really shaken. I wish I could be home with him right now, but Greg is there and I have called a couple of times to make sure he is still ok. The rash got pretty irritated but I don't think it's getting any worse anymore.

So, another potentially big crisis avoided. I'm ready for a break!