Hospitals

are not a place to get sleep!

Friday evening, my husband and I went out with another couple to dinner. The other couple had to pick up one of their sons from a birthday party at 9 p.m. My parents were watching the kids, plus an extra that I'd taken on for the week.

We went out, and had a great time, and had a great dinner! When we got home, it was almost 8:45. My oldest son has been allowed to start staying up until 9, since he will be starting middle school in the fall.

I asked him if he took his medicine, and he said, "Yeah. I couldn't find the 400 mg stuff, so I took 2 two hundred mg pills."


WHAT??????????

He doesn't have any 200 mg pills in this particular medication, which means he took 400 mg of wellbutrin SR. SHOOT. He had told my mom that he couldn't find his bedtime medication, and she told him we'd be back before 9, so he just needed to wait til we got home. He thought he was being helpful. To him, it made perfect sense. He just took a couple 200 mg tabs, because 200 and 200 is 400. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right medication.

So, we called the nurse line, and then they called poison control, and then we took him to the ER. The ER doctor listened to what happened and said we could take him home, until he found out the medication he hadn't taken (and wasn't going to be allowed to take at this point) is one that he has withdrawal symptoms when he misses. He said, "we're getting him a bed"

So, he had a bit of tachycardia, (fast heart rate) and his breathing rate was very elevated at some points. But their main worry was seizures, and in that regard he was ok. They kept him on a heart monitor to keep track of his vitals. Anyway, by the time they got a room for him and got us all settled in, it was after 1 a.m.

Alex went to sleep, but I was up until after 2 a.m. listening to the monitor alarm when his respiration rate when above 30 per minute, which was pretty often at first. Then, he woke me up at 5 a.m. vomiting, which is what he does when he has withdrawal from the bedtime medication.

The nurse called the doctor right away, and they gave him some Zofran for the nausea, but it didn't help, and he threw up again, conveniently about 15 minutes after they'd given him a half dose of Seroquel (which is his bedtime med)

He continued to throw up, and at about 9 the nurse gave him a different medication for nausea. Then at about 9:20, he threw up again. At 9:30, the nurse brought him another 200 mg of Seroquel to see if they could get enough in his system to get him through til he could take it again that night and get him to stop throwing up.

We told him how to breathe and to try and get through a half an hour without throwing up again. He was so tough and brave! He breathed and breathed, and blew like a lamaze champ! And it worked! Five minutes later, he asked, "has it been 20 minutes yet?" The poor kids was just MISERABLE.

He just kept breathing and panting, and watching Animal Planet. After the show we'd turned on for him to get his mind off feeling nauseated was over, I noticed he was getting kind of loopy. I asked him if he was tired, and he said he was. I got him to lie down and close his eyes.

He lay there with his eyes closed, and kept blowing and breathing through his nausea. He would start falling asleep and relaxing, and then he would kind of jump, and start panting again. Eventually, he fell asleep, and we knew we'd be ok. The nurse told me it took about 90 minutes to be in his system fully, so if he kept it down until 11 a.m., that would be ideal. And he did. He slept. Then around 12, the nurse came and woke him up, and got him to tell her where he was, what month it was, etc. And then he ate! And it stayed down!

So we hung out for about 20 minutes or so after he ate, because they wanted to make sure he didn't throw up again, and then he got discharged. We left for home a little after 1 p.m.

I am still tired today, I got 3 hours of sleep that night, and about 8 last night, but still felt like I could have used more. But he's ok! And that was what was most important to me.

I am so blessed to have a husband who not only has the ability to give blessings, but also GIVES them. He and my dad gave my little boy a blessing that he would be fine, and that he would come through this with no ill effects, and he did. It could have been SO much worse. I am grateful that it wasn't, and that we came through it virtually unscathed.

And, now we know that we need to work on Alex's administration of prescription drugs. He needs to learn how to read the labels, and what the pills look like, etc. Lesson learned!

Happy Anniversary to me!

so, check out what I got for my anniversary! (yeah, it's early by a week or so, but who's counting?? LOL)

My dh ROCKS! I saw this ring when I'd gone in to have my ring cleaned, etc. and I fell in love with it! And, luckily my awesome husband agreed that I should have it! :)

So, my ring was the engagment ring, which has a .5 carat princess cut diamond and two small round diamonds on either side. The wedding band is a 2mm plain white gold band.

And this is what my gorgeous new anniversary band looks like!

The Alarm WORKS!

How do I know? I'll tell ya!

A few months ago, we were given alarm equipment for free with free installation. We only had to pay the monthly fee. I think we may have signed a service agreement as well, but I can't remember for sure. But anyway... I digress.

We set the alarm every night when we go to bed. Fine. Lef T leaves fairly early in the a.m. usually, so it's off by the time anyone goes to let the dog out. Yesterday was the last day of school for all the kids in our district. And, it just so happens that Lef T worked a 12 hour day yesterday, so he took the opportunity to sleep in just a little.

Well, at 6:50 a.m. our phone starts ringing, and it's toll free. I was pretty cranked, considering that telemarketers aren't supposed to call before 8 a.m. So, I picked up the phone and listened to see if there were messages. There were, so I called voice mail. No message from today, just a few from yesterday that I'd forgotten to check when I got home from running errands. Anyway... So, suddenly, I hear our dog barking, and it's not her normal, high-pitched "pay attention to me" or, "I need to go pee" bark. So, I look at Lef T, who conveniently NEVER freakin wears pajamas, and I roll my eyes and go down to see what's going on with the dog.

I go downstairs and I am greeted by a strange beeping I've never heard before, and a VERY strong pounding on my front door. Instantly, the light bulb goes on! The alarm had been set off.

So, I am yelling at my kids as I am running to the front door to let the officer know we are fine.
I am standing there in my pjs and apologizing profusely to the fine officer who has come to make sure we are ok. I said, "OH my gosh, I heard the dog barking and couldn't figure out why, and she must have heard you knocking."
His response, " Actually, I have an officer in your back yard."

HOLY CRAP.

So I explained to them that the alarm had been set off by my son w/ autism. I said, "you know, usually it's been turned off by now because my husband and oldest are up and out the door, but yesterday was the last day of school, and my kiddo didn't think the he needed to check the panel before he let the dog out."

So he asked how long we'd had the system, and said that next time they'd go ahead and have us fill out a false alarm report. Which, by the way, they charge for! Which is fine, they should! But that was how this lovely Thursday began for me. Turns out it was the alarm company that called, and it just showed up as a toll free number. LOL Guess we should have answered. We could have saved a couple of officers a trip! UGH!!!!!!!!

And, after they left, the alarm company came over the panel asking for my name and password and asking if everything was ok. I will tell you that thank goodness for a QUICK response from them and our local PD. And thankfully, it was a false alarm, but it's good to know that had it not been, they were here so fast and checking into it. I am pretty darn sure that had I not gotten downstairs when I did, we'd be purchasing a new front door today.

And the other thing that scared me a little was that the dog was barking like mad at the officer in our yard. And it scares me to think what would have happened had she advanced on him. ACK! Thank God this did not go tragic on us, and I have definitely slept a little better at night knowing that the alarm system was in place. I know I will sleep even better now that I've seen it in action!

Here's to happy endings!
W

It will help me immensely

if certain people with whom I co-parent would not bitch about me in front of the children. Or about their father.

Here's a NEWS FLASH.

YOU LEFT to pursue your homosexual love interest. Good for you. Whatever. YOU also chose to let HIM have home base custody of the kids with you having weekend visitation. That was YOUR choice so you could go live in her double wide mobile home which currently has no freakin OVEN. WHATEVER. Also YOUR choice.

But, don't come talk to me about the boy child's pants being missing. Because you know what? he didn't come home NAKED. He wore clothes home. So if he wore pants over here from there and it's that big a deal to you, make him change before he comes home. AND, if he did wear the pants over here, that means a pair of OUR pants are there. SO WHO CARES????

Do you know how many pairs of socks our daughter has left over there? Some of them are MINE. Have I ever said a WORD to you about it? NO. Because you know what? She has socks on. Does it really matter which house they came from or who purchased them???? GIVE ME A BREAK. Please, sew labels in their clothing if it's such a big deal, or SHUT THE HELL UP. Oh, I forgot, you're both butch and neither of you sew. Or clean, for that matter. I find it interesting that every time a pair of pants goes missing, YOU find them in your sty a couple weeks later, yet I never get an apology.

Not only that, but shut up about the nutritional value of cereal. Both of you are obese heiffers, so I find it humerous that you will both bitch and moan about how unhealthy I am. Hmmm... when was the last time I was unexpectedly in the hospital??? Hmm, that would have been five years ago for an emergency appendectomy. How bout YOU? a year ago? Maybe?

And, I'd love to be able to have my kids for a weekend, while someone else takes care of them for FREE while I work two jobs during the week. It must be nice to have dual income and practically no kids. Know what it costs to pay for daycare these days? About $115 per week per child. How much do you pay in child support? $290. For TWO kids. Incidentally, my husband saved you $400 filing fee to change it by writing you a check back every month for $87. Sounds like a jack ass alright. I can see why your trailer living lesbian lover had so much appeal for you.

Gee, and thanks for your concern for my child w/ autism. I'm so glad the two of you are such fit parents that you have a 12 year old girl and an almost 9 year old boy sharing a bedroom. You should be worried about my child, since you clearly have such a good handle on your own lives that you would forego fixing your fucking oven to fly out to San Diego to take the kids to Sea World. Hmm... how much healthy cooking can you really do in the microwave/toaster oven????

My point here is this.... You have five days a week to bitch and moan about me and the father of your children. Five days when they aren't there. SHUT THE HELL UP when they are there. I will gladly let you take them during the week so we can be the disneyland parents for a while. Must be nice. I don't talk smack about you to the kids all week, the least you could do is shut up for the weekend. I have kids here who don't have contact with the other parent, so a 9 year old inciting issues in our family by complaining about the lack of fun stuff they get to do is really not helpful. If you cared about these kids at all you wouldn't be so disrespectful about their other set of parents. Especially when that set of parents is primarily responsible for the care of the children in question. How nice that you have "free" childcare that you can then bad mouth.

Hope you have the money saved to pay for their therapy when they are older because of how much you've screwed them up. Oh, that money will probably finally fix the oven, huh?