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C
Countrymouse Posted August 2014

Fool proof medications (I'm the idiot).

Okay, here is the little routine I worked out. Breakfast tray: all meds except the evening ones into blue Chinese man egg cup. At the same time, dispense lunchtime meds into rabbit egg cup. Rabbit back into cupboard, blue Chinese man on breakfast tray in to mother. It's worked fine.

This morning, for some reason I am at a loss to explain, I managed to leave the rabbit on the breakfast tray. And didn't realise until I went into the cupboard for something else and thought eh? Where's the rabbit?

Oh @¡*&@€!!!!! Ran into mother's room, and of course - why wouldn't she? - she's taken the lot. Both sets of meds. And is sitting there happily sipping her tea.

So…How are you feeling, mother :)? Fine. I reread all the patient information leaflets. Hm. If I call doctor daughter for advice, she will say don't worry. If I call doctor SIL for advice, she will say straight to ER. So I call our national medical advice service and wade through their five thousand question assessment before being reassured, 30 minutes later, after they've consulted the Poisons Unit, that there is probably no cause for alarm. Unless mother falls unconscious, becomes dizzy or breathless, bleeds profusely or develops blistering around her mouth, in which case I should call them back (from the car, at 90 mph on my way to the hospital, is that?).

Happy ending: the major injury is bruising, to me, as I kick myself all round the room for doing such a fat-headed thing. But, ok, dosing errors happen in the best of circles - what are people's top tips for getting this RIGHT EVERY TIME.

vstefans Aug 2014
Damn, that sounds good.

jeannegibbs Aug 2014
Ooo ... dark chocolate and inappropriate tv. Can't have hurt her too much!

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Countrymouse Aug 2014
Thank you for cheering me up, everyone - well at least that was one weight off Coy's mind, Jeanne! Off to Boots the Chemist to get a pill box on Monday, I think - there are lots online, too, but I'd rather have a good prod at them before I buy and check I can't still make a hash of it using them, too…

Mother's fine, thank God (I'd had visions of double-strength diuretics shrinking what's left of her brain to shrivelled up tissue paper). Bit quiet, but noshing her dark chocolate and watching highly inappropriate TV.

jeannegibbs Aug 2014
You can stop making mistakes by stop being human. Good luck with that.

One day when I opened my pill box at work the contents didn't look right. I recognized them as Coy's pills! I called him immediately, but he'd already taken the pills I'd left behind for him. Well, I assured him, he didn't have to worry about getting pregnant that day. It would have been more serious if I didn't bother to really look at the pills and had taken his, because his were more serious pills!

Eyerishlass Aug 2014
You're human. There are so many safe-guards in place in hospitals to prevent med errors but they still occur because no one has yet to figure out how to do things perfectly every time.

You can always call the pharmacist if you have a question. They're easily accessible and you won't have to go through a 30 min. screening to get to a human. The pharmacist will be able to tell you if you need to worry.

Veronica91 Aug 2014
Poor CM what a dillema. You did not give Mum anything that was not prescribed for that day. Listen to Dr daughter not SIL. If you went to the ER they would have triarged her and kept her sitting before they decided whether to wash her stomach out. Wait a minute she doesn't deserve that and anyway it's probably too late.
Get youself a medicine box and put out all the meds for a week. This not only saves a lot of time but lets you see you have actually given them. At the appointed time you just tip that section into her pill pot and bingo all done. I do this for myself and tried to get hubby to let me do it for him but no luck "Hands off my meds" variation on "Don't touch my stuff" so when I do get round to vacuuming I have to go round the piles of paper. Have youself an early gin and tonic and RELAX

blannie Aug 2014
What I do for my mom is to fill up those weekly medication dispensers that have morning/afternoon/evening slots all at one time. Doing it daily is a pain in the you-know-what in my opinion. That way, each dose is set up by the time of day it's given. You'd still have to put them out for your mom, but there's much less chance that you'd put out two doses at one time, because you'd have to open two different slots.

I've got three of those dispensers, so can set up three weeks at one time. Much easier to get my production line going to set up her meds that way. Don't beat yourself up, we've all made medication errors one way or the other. It just goes with the territory.

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