Not so Good Friday

Aliza and her medical issues always seem to pop up on a holiday or the day of an event. So why would Good Friday be any different... The day was going too smooth. The kids and I were out for a walk, we ran into neighbors and they walked back with us to the house and played in the backyard. All was fine and the kids were playing really well. I noticed Aliza had gone inside. She likely had to go to the bathroom or wanted a snack, so I did not get alarmed. Within a few minutes she came outside and declared that she had taken her medicine! She was very confident about this and made the state almost as if to say, 'mommy, I told you so!" Earlier in the day when I had given to her the daily heart medicine that she takes, she told me that she was supposed to get it two times... not just one time, which I had given her. I explained to her that sometimes she gets her medicine in a small syringe which requires her to take it two times, but on this day I gave it to her in a bigger syringe, which is large enough to hold a full dose. She was insistant that I was wrong and obviously was having trouble understand my explaination. Needless to say, we moved on and went outside to play... fast forward to her coming outside to tell me she had just taken her medicine. I knew immediately what she had done and why she had done it. She felt that she did not get her full dose and was sure that she was going to take a full dose. I went inside with her and told her to show me how she took her medicine and how much she took. She told me she took 2. She was able to open the child-proof bottle and she poured the medicine into a teaspoon measuring spoon, not the dosing syringe. The measuring spoon holds 10mLs of medicine and she took 2 spoonfulls. She is prescribed to take 2mLs, 2 times per day. I calculated the amount of medicine left in the bottle, compared to the amount of medicine she should have left in the bottle since its last refill. There were about 21mLs unaccounted for. We called the Cardiologist on-call and went in to the ER. On the way to the ER she became tired and started falling asleep. I panicked as I was not sure if this was because of the medicine or because she often falls asleep in the car. Inside I was a wreck! As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, she said, "I am in big trouble aren't I?" At this point tears filled my eyes because all I could think of her making it through this, not how I was going to punish her. I realized how devasting this moment could be for our family. Once there her blood pressure had dropped significantly and they put her in a room and started her on IV's right away. She was quite a trooper through the whole event and once there we knew that she was going to be fine. Unfortunately it took a moment like this for us to realize that she could open a child proof bottle, but all those hours of Occupational Therapy have been beneficial... she proved her fine motor skills are pretty good! This definetely impacted her, she would not even consider taking medicine that was not given to her by an adult! There were no aftereffects of the overdose and we all went home within 6 hours of observation. Thankfully she took a medicine with relatively mild overdose effects! Lesson Learned: Don't underestimate Aliza and medicince kept on the top shelf of the fridge door and childproof top is not safe enough!