1st Hospital Visit

We had quite the scare on Labor Day Weekend with Princess Pea. While we were at Nick's parent's house, Allie got her hands on Linda's weekly pill container. Before I realized it, she had popped open one of the days and the pills spilled all over the counter. As I gathered them up and compared them to the other days, I realized that one tiny little blood pressure pill was missing. We searched all over for the pill but could not find it. We had no other choice than to believe that Allie had somehow swallowed it.

I called Poison Control and told them the situation. They told me that I needed to drive "very quickly but safely" to the nearest branch of Children's Hospital. So Nick and I piled Allie in the car and headed to the Liberty Campus. On the way, Allie fell asleep and Nick had a very difficult time getting her to wake up. I don't think I have ever been so scared in my entire life. I had 911 dialed on my cell phone, just waiting to push "talk." She finally woke up just as we were about to arrive at the ER.

Poison Control had called ahead and pre-registered us so we were seen immediately. Allie was acting like nothing had happened and just played with the toys they brought her. I felt like a complete idiot every time I had to explain how she got her hands on the pill and they definitely made me feel like the worst parent ever, but Allie didn't seem to notice.

Several people came in and examined her in the ER. The doctor finally came in and told us the wonderful news that we were being transferred to the downtown location for an overnight stay in the cardiac ICU. She said that there is no way to tell if Allie had swallowed the pill so she would need to be hooked up to a heart monitor until it was out of her system.

They came and put an IV in. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch. Thank God the nurse got it on the first try or I would have totally lost it.

We then waited for the ambulance transfer to arrive. It seemed like it took forever but they finally got Allie strapped to the stretcher. She had a big smile on her face and waved to the nurses and staff as we were leaving the ER. I rode in the ambulance with her. She stayed awake watching the lines on the monitor for awhile, but finally zonked out.

When we arrived at Children's we were escorted to our room. Allie slept through being weighed, measured and checked. The doctor came in and wanted to do an EKG. We were not lucky enough for her to sleep through that. She screamed as the doctor applied the stickers and started kicking and hitting when they tried to hook up the lines. I finally had to ask them all to leave the room so that I could calm her down. She fell asleep and they were able to run the test while she slept in her bed.

We were told that we would be staying at least 18 hours and to try to get some sleep. It was hard to sleep with her monitors beeping all night, but we made it through.

The next morning she was re-examined by a whole throng of doctors and nurses. We continued to wait. She did not like being confined to the hospital bed but had to be hooked up to a heart monitor . It was so hard to attempt to entertain her in that small bed, even with the toys they brought her.

Finally, we were allowed to go to the playroom so that she could get out of the crib for awhile. You would have thought she won the lottery, she was so happy!

Around 3pm we were finally released and headed home ! We'll never know if she took the pill or not but are beyond thankful that she showed no effects from it at all. We're hoping this is our last trip to the hospital but with our little monkey, that's not looking like a very good possibility.