Worse mother in the world

The worse mother in the world was what I was thinking as I took my son into the Emergency Department at Flinders Medical Centre. 

I felt terrible.  The Doctors told me that ingesting propranonol was very serious and that it can kill babies and people use it to commit suicide.  Straight to the point they were.  It was a very serious matter.

I was typing away on my computer, and generally doing what I have been doing a lot of lately, hanging out in the kitchen, cooking, surfing the net, checking my items on ebay.  Owen was in our bed, he had been asleep for about half an hour when I heard him winging at my door, and cry and a few bangs.  I thought he would be okay, he went quiet, great so I kept on doing what I was doing in the kitchen.  A few more bangs on the door and a cry.  So after about 10 minutes, I kept forgetting him, I went down to see what he was doing.

I opened the door to find little pink tablets on the floor, saliva and pink crushed tablets dribbling down his chin and onto his tshirt, some pink patches on the floor and some on the bed.  He had been eating my prescription tablets, ones that had been in the bottom of a bag for a few years.  I had forgotten that they were in there, and he had obviously dragged the bag out of the bottom of the wardrobe, poked those little hands down into the centre part of the bag to find the drugs.

The thing with Owen he puts everything into his mouth and is constantly into everything.  That day I had found him trapped under a medium sized picture, the glass broken and cut his chest.  Nothing serious luckily.  He nearly swallowed a little yellow ball, and had fallen backwards to crack his head onto the floor boards.  All in one day.  He was on a roll. 

So the tablets just topped it all off.  In a panic I looked up the hospital number. At that stage I was not sure if it was a medical emergency so would talk to the health hotline first.  It was busy.  I rang my Doctor, I know the number by heart, explained my story.  They said it was important for me to get Owen to the hospital straight away and that it was very serious.  They said if I had insurance to ring the ambulance.  So I put both boys in the car and drove to Flinders Medical Centre.

It was not clear how many tablets Owen had consumed so the Doctors decided to keep him in overnight.  Poor little thing, ECG, blood glucose test by prick to the finger, and two attempts to put a jelco needle into his hand with no luck.  The medical staff monitored him all night, every two hours they did their tests to make sure he was okay because they did not know if he was going to get worse.  But thankfully, after six hours they knew that he was in the clear and would be okay.

At the morning Paediatric ward round, the Doctor made a point that children who help themselves to tablets tend to do it again if the parents are not careful.  It is in their nature.  I agreed straight away.  The consultant asked me to watch poisons in cupboards under the sink and anything dangerous to be put up higher in cupboards and that I will need to keep an eye on him up to school age because he just does not understand.

It is so true, Owen puts everything in his mouth and Charlie his brother was exactly opposite.  So I suppose we never had to worry about Charlie and that has made me a little complacent.  I never had a problem with Charlie doing that, such a careful child.  But Owen on the other hand is one I am going to have to watch.