So hopefully there won't be a lot more trips to the ER, but I had to name my post by this name anyway. Wednesday, April 14 (to be exact), I had just returned from picking up Amberly at preschool. Once again, Wesley, as he often does, refused to get out of the van when we got home. He does that every so often. Usually I take the rest of the kids inside and then go back and get him. Sometimes I have the energy to fight him to get out right away, but not on a regular basis lately. I can't remember what I came inside and did, but maybe 5 minutes or less went by and he didn't come in. When I went out to get him he was sitting in the drivers seat chewing. "Oh great!" I thought. "What is it this time?"
Well, it turned out to be a bottle of chewable motion sick medicine that I keep in there for the girls when we are on long, windy roads. One had dropped to the seat, but there were definitely one or two in his mouth. My heart started to pound and panic set in as I yelled for him to spit them out. They were already too dissolved though as I continued to expound on the dangers of eating medicine or anything that "we haven't asked Mom to eat". I pulled him out of the car and put him in his room on the way to look up the number for poison control. As I called, I began to count the pills and found there were 85 in a bottle that started with 100. Perhaps I had given it to the girls 2-3 times at most, which meant he could have eaten up to 10 pills. The calm lady on the other end of the line said that 8 was the toxic level. I would have to head to the nearest ER as quickly as possible because she happened to know that this particular drug bonded with charcoal and the sooner he could get some into his stomach the better.
Luckily the nearest ER is less than 10 minutes away. We were walking up to the front entrance, when a nurse ran out, asked which of the children was Wesley, picked him up and ran with him into the hospital. Apparently, poison control had called and alerted them to the fact that I was coming so they could be ready with what he needed. I tried to help Wesley stay calm as they hooked him up to heart and pulse oxygen monitors. He was particularly bothered by the one they taped to his big toe and cried to have it taken off. When they finally mixed the liquid charcoal stuff with enough chocolate syrup to make any child happy, no amount of coaxing would get him to drink it after his first taste. Even after I offered him a toy, he tried and ended up gagging and spitting it all over. Since there was no getting him to drink it, the doctor said they would have to put a tube up his nose and down his throat to his stomach. I decided that I just couldn't stand to watch that happen, plus Ellie was hungry and I didn't particularly want Amberly to watch either, so a nurse escorted us to another room. After what seemed like forever, they came and asked me to calm him down. They had gotten the tube in and x-rayed to make sure it was in place, but he was so upset and trying to cough and gag that they couldn't get the medicine down. I must have sung "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" and "Give Said the Little Stream" at least a million times by the time they finally got all the medicine into him. I had a hard time seeing him so upset and not crying myself. When all was said and done, he ended up having to take an ambulance up to the Children's Hospital in St. Louis for a 24 hour watch. Luckily, Tom was able to cancel his patients and follow the ambulance up there to spend the night so that I could stay home with Ellie and not have take her to spend the night too. He never manifested any symptoms and has been as active as ever. I feel so blessed that my stupidity has not led to more serious injury. Tom said with as many kids as we have, we're lucky we haven't visited the ER more often.
