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!