Friday, August 26, 2011

The scare

So yesterday I was getting ready to go into work for some meetings.  Beckett was playing with cars downstairs and Harper was running around the upstairs with me.  She disappeared for a few minutes and came back to the bathroom where I was with something purple running down her chin.  It took me about 30 seconds to realize it was children's ibuprofen.  I ran into her room and found a bottle of medicine 75% gone with splashes on her table and floor.  I ran back to her to realize her little pajama shirt was covered in the sticky sweet medicine as well.

I ran to the phone and dialed Dustin's number three times, each time he didn't answer.  I had no idea how much medicine was in that bottle.  I had remembered Dustin getting up with Harper the night before, he had given her a dose due to a persistent cough we were trying to help her through.  Dustin called back and I told him what happened.  I was so angry... I was so scared... I couldn't believe this could be happening.  Dustin told me the bottle was about half full when he dosed her the night before.  I felt paralyzed, what should I do.  It seems a little crazy in hindsight that I was so paralyzed.  Every day at work awful things happen, people stop breathing, hearts stop beating and I fly into action.  I can handle those situations without every getting stressed or loosing my cool, but this was not like those times.

It took me 5-10 minutes to realize I needed to call poison control.  A very kind soothing voice talked me through the process.  "How much does the baby weigh?"  "How much could she have possibly had?"  After a few minutes the very level headed nurse reassured me that Harper would have had to drink more than the entire bottle to have hurt herself.  Deep breath.

But as soon as I hung up the phone I was overcome with uncontrollable sobbing.  My shoulders shook, I couldn't catch my breath.  Dustin called to say that the pediatrician's office said we needed to call poison control, I could barely pull it together enough to say that I had already done that and everything was okay.

Just like that, it seemed like everything could have changed.  I knew that she was fine and that this situation was going to be alright, but I couldn't stop thinking about the what-ifs.  What if it had been one of my medicines?  What if she had gotten into something that really could have hurt her?  What would I do without her?  How would I go on?  How would I EVER forgive myself?

It seems so clear now how lives can change in just an instant.

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