Medicine Sipping Munchkin

Libby made her first trip to the Emergency Room yesterday morning. It's interesting that I've never been to the ER for myself, but I've already taken Libby and Caleb each one time this year.

It seems that we left Caleb's ibuprofen out on the coffee table Tuesday night after we gave him his bed time dose. Nathan is positive that he put the cap back on the bottle, so we're not sure if he simply forgot to put the top on, or if Libby has mastered child proof lids. Regardless, Libby was standing by the couch sipping the medicine when I came down stairs on my way out the door to work. Nathan was out walking the dog, so I had to wait until he came back in to see how much was left in the bottle before Libby got hold of it. He thought there was at least a half of a bottle left, so I called our pediatrician's office. They connected me to one of their urgent care doctors who said Libby needed to be checked out ASAP in the ER.

So, I packed her into the car and zipped her over to the Cuyahoga Falls general hospital. They took her in quickly and monitored her vitals while they made up their minds about what to do. At first, they thought they should administer activated charcoal to get the toxins out of her system. The nurses were all laughing at Libby the whole time, because she had such a bad attitude about the whole episode. She was highly offended when they tried to weigh her (37 lbs by the way!) and even more offended when they asked her any questions or touched her at all. The worst was when they peeled off the sticky pads they had used to monitor her. She was mad that she couldn't have anything to drink, and she was mad that she couldn't have a snack. Finally, after hours of waiting, they decided that they would just discharge her as long as we kept a careful eye on her. The nurses were really glad that they didn't have to hold her down and make her take the charcoal after the attitude she was giving them. We estimated that she took about 300-400 Mg's of Ibuprofen. I think she should be all set on any aches and pains for a few weeks! For once, having a 100 + percentile sized child is paying off.

Nathan stayed home with the kids all day. I finally made it to work several hours later than I had planned. Libby showed no signs of any ill effect from her episode. Nathan was especially relieved that she was OK, since he left the medicine out where she could reach it. We both learned a valuable lesson (a $100 copay lesson) to keep the medicine out of reach at all times. Libby learned not to drink any body's medicine without permission, or she will have to go to the hated hospital again. And now we have the poison control number posted prominently on the side of the refrigerator.