An Emergency Room Scare

If you're ever wondering what to do on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, may I suggest not spending it at your local Emergency Room? That's where Charlotte, Allie, Alyse, and I were holed up for the latter part of the day yesterday.

To explain:

Charlotte had a friend, who she works with at the Grace nursery, over to the house for the day. I had just gotten home from work and was on the computer when Charlotte came through the hall, frantically saying Alyse had eaten some of the friend's medication-two pills--out of her purse. When I asked what kind, all that was known at the time that one was a "heart" pill, the other a diabetes pill. Of course, I became overcome with fear, thinking only to Google the number for the Texas Poison Control Hotline and then grabbing my keys on the way out the door.

Looking back now, we were endlessly blessed to have Amy Roberts at our house at the time, as well as Marshall (our temporary border) to look after Alex and Allie. We really never gave it a second thought.

Unfortunately, the friend did not know the exact names of the medication she was taking, and Amy had to rush her to the friend's house to retrieve that information. The Poison Control Center said there was little the ER could do until they knew that exact prescription information. As I raced past slow-moving vehicles, I kept expecting to look in my rearview mirror and see Alyse wigging out or starting to slump over--any sign that something was biologically wrong inside her. Instead, I saw the same spirited and playful Alyse, talking to Charlotte and playing games.

Once we were in the hospital, the staff took her vitals and drew blood. The doctor confirmed that they would not be able to tell anything until the prescription information was made known. Shortly thereafter, Amy arrived at the hospital with the names of the medication and half of one of the pills that was thought to be entirely ingested. After the doctor took the pill and the medication names, we were left to stew over the frightening possibilities for about half an hour. He came back and told us one was a cholesterol pill and one was a blood sugar pill. Unfortunately, he told us, the half pill was the cholesterol pill which would have little impact on Alyse. The blood sugar pill, however, could have drastic effects on her blood sugar--affecting it for 24 hours with the possibility of Alyse slipping into a coma if she was asleep and her blood sugar dropped low enough.

We were floored.

The doctor told us there was no reason to try and contain Alyse in such a small space with nothing to do. The only thing to be done was to monitor her blood sugar again in a few hours and proceed from there. He let us leave the E.R. and told us to return at 8:30 PM.

Trying to keep our spirits up, we picked up something to eat and went home. I sat there watching Alyse watch "Little Einsteins." My heart plummeted at the thought of anything remotely serious happening to her. I was lost in sweet memories when...

Charlotte yelled from the other room. "I found the other pill!"

Alyse had not eaten it, but rather mistook the first one for candy, took a chomp and then spit it out. We decided to take her back to the ER at the scheduled time, just to make sure everything was fine. Aside from wasting another two hours of our night, everything was completely normal.

We chocked this one up to a life lesson to keep visitor's purses high and out of sight. But any major incident has been avoided....for now.