My Dad, Mom, little brother and little sister live in Las Vegas, NV. My dad works in construction and needed to take a week-long class in California in order to get a new job. I don't get to see my parents often so I try to take every opportunity I can. Not to mention, Jenna absolutely adores her "Pompa" as she calls him. So we went to see him as much as we could during that week without impeding his studies. It was on our very first visit with him that I had the worst experience of my entire existence.
The date is June 13, 2011. The time, approximately 6 pm. We are at my Grandparent's house visiting with my dad. Now my grandma makes jewelry and takes medication. Not to mention she has a lot of collectibles and such that Jenna could easily break. Jenna is the type of 2 year old you would expect - A mini tornado. And my husband is the kind of father you would expect - oblivious. Just kidding. But for the most part I am the parent that is chasing Jenna down. Yep, you know what I mean.. "Jenna, get over here" and "Jenna, don't touch that", over and over and over with the help of my Grandma, always the parent, while the "men" are having a conversation. How this is accomplished over my constant squawking I have no idea but I am none-the-less impressed. Some day doctors will realize that "Selective Hearing" is a medical condition that requires shock treatment.
As most parents know, when your 2 year old is quiet for any amount of time longer than a minute, they're either asleep or doing something they're not supposed to be. While the men were talking, I took a quick listen to see if I could hear where she was. When I didn't hear her, warning bells started going off in my head. So I called out to her while walking towards the rooms to find her. She responds with "I'm right here Mom!", as though it should be obvious, while walking out of my grandparent's bedroom. I do a mommy-scan of her little body and instantly notice her clutched hand. I ask "Jenna, what do you have in your hand?" And she opens up that little palm of hers and says "Candy." Now we're back to the title! That was NOT candy. Sure enough my darling, little Angel had one of my grandma's diabetes pills.
Now, we're going to stop right there for a second. I know you're thinking, "Well how did she get the pills?" or "Why weren't you watching her better?" or even better, "She opened up the pill bottle? I'm impressed!" But before you go and start formulating your own conclusions as to my parenting ability or my daughter's ability to grasp the mechanics of a childproof pill bottle, let me explain to you how she got the "candy". It's quite simple really... my grandma has a pill divider. So she has her pills separated by day and even time of day. They're little plastic compartments with pop-open tops. And although she isn't a Baby Einstein, my daughter does love her M&M Minis... But despite the con of easy access, one good thing came out of the pill seperation. We were able to find out very quickly which pills Jenna had taken. Because, yes, 2 pills were missing. And this happened in the time span of about 2 minutes. So, short of following her every move 24 hours a day, it was very hard to have prevented this, without some kind of preparation. (Quick note: With small, disaster-prone children, whenever you go to someone's house, make sure pills, breakables, and anything of the sort is put away and locked up) And if you still question my parenting, well......... Bye. Leave now. Because no matter what I say, you will continue to judge, despite the fact that I spent 8 hours playing with my daughter in the ER. For those of you who are still reading, well, here is what you can be prepared for if you suspect your child swallowed any sort of medication that they weren't supposed to.
Since this is my first child, I had no clue what to do. So, I did the only logical thing I could think of. Call her doctor's office and speak to the on-call nurse. When I told her what had happened she said I needed to call Poison Control and proceeded to give me the phone number. At this point I felt a little flutter of panic in the pit of my stomach. With shaky hands I dialed the number to Poison Control. I explained to him the situation. We suspected Jenna ate the pills. There were two 5mg tablets of Glyburide missing. And she is only 2. Without hesitation he informed me that Jenna needed to be taken to the Emergency Room immediately. He takes my information, I hang up, and walk out to the living room to tell everybody the status of the situation. At this point I am on auto-pilot. I can't panic. I just know that I have to get to the ER as quickly as is safely possible.
Once I get to the ER, I tell them the situation and they admit us immediately given Jenna's age and the severity of the situation. According to the guy at Poison Control, the pills we suspected she ate are to lower blood pressure. How bad can that possibly be, you ask? Well, they were adult doses and 5mg is enough to lower a child's blood sugar drastically. And we thought she had taken 2. So yeah. It was pretty bad. Three things had to happen now. First, blood had to be drawn for testing. And as you might know, children don't like that too much. Jenna was screaming bloody murder. And I was starting to panic. Juan had to hold her because I was shaking so badly. The second thing, her finger had to be pricked every hour for *8* hours to check her blood sugar levels. And the third, and in my opinion worst possible thing to happen, was that she had to drink charcoal. Yes, charcoal. Like the stuff you use to grill hamburgers. From what I understand, it was supposed to absorb the medication. But, as you can imagine, Jenna didn't think it tasted very good. So much so that they had to try to force feed it to her.
It took 4 nurses and myself to hold her down. Not only that, they had to strap her to a board and wrap her in a blanket. Boy, that adrenaline sure is something. Because that still wasn't really enough. The had sucked the charcoal drink into 4 syringes to try to force her to drink, and we only managed to get half of one. They tried the plug the nose thing so she would open her mouth, but she found a way around that. Smart kid... The charcoal was what really got to me. I was in tears. My 2 year old daughter is strapped to a board, with black stuff spewing from her mouth, tears streaming down her face, and I felt like it was my fault. I almost lost it at that point and broke down. Tears were now streaming down my face, but then, they decided to not try to force it anymore, and just check her blood sugar. If it ever went lower than a 90, we would try again. Thankfully though, her blood sugar levels never dropped into the danger zone and we were released at around 2:30 in the morning. This was a learning experiences and sometimes, bad things have to happen in order for you to get the message. Believe me, not only did I get the message, loud and clear, Jenna now knows that she can't just be grabbing whatever she wants, so I don't have to look at her and say "That was NOT candy!!!!"
This is though... I'd give you candy for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner if it meant we would never have to do that again...
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