After Derek's last round of shots at 2 months, he was very fussy and only wanted to be held. It was a very long 24 hours for Mike and I. We were prepared for the same thing to happen this time and also prepared Lorri, our daycare provider that this might happen. The nurse/doctor sent us home with a sheet which explained which medicine we could give him, what the proper dosage was, and which medicines to avoid. I read the sheet about 5 times and compared it to the medicine Mike had previously purchased (the box said it was for 2-3 year olds) and was surprised to find he picked up the wrong stuff. So on my way to drop Derek off at daycare, I swung by the store to pick up the correct medicine in case he got a fever at daycare (meds for kids 6-24 months old).
Derek did great at daycare but started running a fever early evening so Mike gave him some meds before bed. He was still running a slight fever in the morning so Mike gave Derek another round of medicine with his morning bottle. In the afternoon, Lorri called and said Derek was running a fever and she was wondering what dosage to give him because the amount the doctor recommended wasn't consistent with what the box's recommended dosage for someone his weight. She gave him what the box recommended dosage was and we said we would figure it out when we got home.
We called the nurse line Wednesday just before the office closed to get this issue straightened out. I explained the situation to the nurse and she agree that Derek should be receiving the dosage that the box recommended. But then why did the hand written doctor's note say something different??? We conferenced in a pharmacist to ask their recommendation. The pharmacist agreed to the dosage on the box. I kept pushing the issue because it didn't feel right. While the nurse was checking more databases and consulting other nurses, I reread the sheet and it actually said that the medicine we had been giving him was in the "DO NOT USE" column. Ahhhh! I told the nurse this and she looked up the dosage of the meds we were supposed to be giving him and yep, that's what the sheet was referring to. By this time though we had already given Derek 3 dosages of medicine that said "DO NOT USE!". Now what?
The nurse conferenced in Poison Control so we could find out what next steps were. (Seriously, Poison Control!!! Okay - by this point, I am getting really anxious). The man on the Poison Control line listened to what happened and agreed that we should not have given him the medicine we did. He directed us to discontinue using the wrong medicine, not to give Derek any more medicine for the evening, and to use the medicine Mike had originally purchased. Because Derek didn't take all that much of it, there was very little risk and there was nothing we could do to off-set the mistake. He said Derek would probably be fine. Derek seemed okay all evening and woke up happy and smiling Thursday morning. Thankfully, no more fever and he has been medicine free ever since.
No comments:
Post a Comment