In Fearful Awe

I've been blessed to have taken our two boys to the Emergency Room on Monday.  Although that sounds much like an oxymoron, today, I feel it is tremendously true.  As I watch them run around in their pajamas on this cold December Friday, I realize how blessed I am to have them after the scare we had on Monday.

My husband called at 10:46 a.m., asking me to look in the office for his yellow notebook as he had written some important information in it and had left it at home.  Four minutes later, I walked into the living room to find the boys in the floor with one of our red cups.  I immediately grabbed the cup out of Daniel's hands and smacked his leg, as he is quite aware that he is not allowed to drink from a cup in the living room.  However, to my surprise and fear, I realized that the liquid in the cup was not a drink my kids should have been drinking.

A few days earlier, I had been diagnosed with bronchitis, and on top of an antibiotic, I was prescribed a cough syrup with hydrocodone in it.  I was to take the syrup, a 5 mL dosage, nightly before bed to help ease the cough I'd been "plagued" with.  This, of course, did not need to be in the reach of my children, and yet this is what I found in the red cup I'd pulled from Daniel's grip.

My heart sank.  I knew that a small amount could be very dangerous in my two toddlers' bodies, so I emptied the remaining syrup from the cup back into the prescribed bottle and crying, called the pharmacist.  While she was very calm, the immensity of the whole situation was alarming to me, and I could not stop crying.  She felt that the boys had drank approximately 40 mL of the syrup and that I should very closely observe them and not allow them to sleep more than thirty minutes at a time.  I was also told to call the pediatrician to make them aware of the situation.

When I called the pediatrician, the situation became much scarier.  I was to call Poison Control immediately...

I imagine that at this point I should explain how I believe Daniel and Samuel got the medicine to begin with.  It was on top of the kitchen counter in the pharmacy bottle.  Daniel used his Sit-N-Spin to climb the counter, grab the medicine bottle, somehow get the childproof top opened, pick a cup out of the sink, pour the cough syrup into the cup, then climb back down and share with his brother.  I am still in awe of my two and a half year old's actions that day.

Upon speaking with Poison Control, I became quite hysterical.  I was to get in the car, drive to the ER, and make certain that neither child fell asleep.  IF one were to fall asleep, I needed to call 9-1-1, as the hydrocodone could keep the boys from breathing.  Somewhere in these quick minutes, I had called my sister, who had sped over to help.  She was able to keep Samuel awake in the van while on our way to the ER.  Thankfully, Daniel never even acted phased.  He was his typical energetic, humorous self.  He was actually explaining to Aunt Ca what he had done.  "I got Mommy's med-cine.  It was yucky.  Yes, I share with Samuel.  He can't not like it.  He spit it out.  It nasty." 

I'll spare the details of our 5 hour observation in the Emergency Room, as it was just that.  Five hours with two toddlers in an emergency room with no television and in their pajamas.  The best parts of that adventure were the graham cracker snacks with peanut butter, Daniel's pee-ing in the urine bag :), and receiving red popsicles once we learned that the tests were negative and the boys were okay.

The ER physician believes that either Daniel's body handled the medication well or that the bottle of medicine didn't have the correct amount of liquid in it when it was prescribed to me.  Either way, he was laughing at how adventurous my life must be on a daily basis.  I was finally able to laugh too...

It was on the following day that I broke.  I dropped the boys off at Mother's Day Out, and Daniel cried for me not to leave.  Oh, how my heart was filled with such relief that he and Samuel were okay!  No one knew how scared I'd been the day before, how guilty I felt, and how close I'd come to having some very sick children.  The tears continued to fall the entire five hours the boys were at school.  I couldn't believe how God had taken this terrible situation and caused my heart to ache for my children.  I really wanted to see them.  I didn't like them being away from me.  I had learned to appreciate their sweet faces and actions and how to NOT take them forgranted in one short day.  Holding them that afternoon after school was one of the best feelings I've ever had.  I'm in awe of how good God is.