Good morning

[Clubfoothead]

So the baby gets 1 ml of propanalol every 6 hours to control her heart rythm. 10 and 4 are her times for this medication (she's on 3 different meds). I'm an insomniac and a light sleeper so I do the 4 am medication. I'm also a control freak so I don't trust anyone else to get up at 4 am every day and give her her medication. Plus my wife is a sleeper. As in the alarm can go off at 7:00 and she can put a pillow over her head and sleep another 2-3 hours with the alarm blaring the whole time.

 

The baby sleeps in our bed so I've been sleeping on the couch since she got home from the hospital in mid August because I also thrash around in my sleep. Every night, no matter what time I fall asleep, I get up at 4:00 am so like most military people or people with good body clocks, the 3:50 alarm being set every night is for peace of mind. It hasn't been used in over two weeks because I've been naturally waking up at about 3:40 on my own.

 

So I'm pretty much worn out all the time as I get up for work at 6:15 anyways and it is not uncommon for me to just not be able to get back to sleep from 4:15 to 6:15. Last night I fell asleep on the couch at about 9:45. My wife was up late watching TV and enjoying some peace and quiet and by the time she decided to go to bed it was about 2:50. She decided to stay up and give the baby her 4:00 am medicine, did so, wrote me a note to that effect, placed it on the coffee table by the couch and promptly passed out in bed with the baby at approximately 4:01.

 

4:16 am I wake up on my own, immediately see that I overslept and am up moving quick (it is a time sensitive does because of the need to keep her heart rythm normal) go into the kitchen, turn the stove light on, get her medicine, give her her medicine and thank goodness I'm a smoker because instead of laying back down on the couch to go to sleep, I go out on the back patio to have a smoke and I turn the porch light on. I smoke the cigarette and as I come in and turn the porch light on I notice a sheet of paper on the coffee table. It's a not from my wife saying she stayed up and gave the baby her 4:00 am medicine.

 

So it's 4:20ish and I'm not experiencing 4:20 like I normally do.

 

I call the hospital where she had her surgery because that's the only place I know of where there is a pediatric cardiologist 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I also know I have virtually no chance of actually getting the pediatric cardiologist on the phone. While I'm doing this, I'm hitting every propanolol website I can find. I find one that says in case of an overdose and adverse reaction, to induce vomiting and seek medical attention. But she's having no adverse reaction. The guy who answers the phone in the PICU says protocol dictates I call the poison control hotline. He tells me this as I am reading the wikipedia entry about how some Russin doctor killed 12 of his patients with propanolol overdoses.

 

So now I've got the wife awake and getting ready to take the baby to the hospital (with 911 the ambulance takes the baby to the nearest hospital and the nearest one has no pedioatric cardiology unit so we go ourselves) while I'm talking to a lady at the poison control hotline. After about 10 minutes we discover that the double dose is still within the "theraputic" range for a baby of her weight. We are also going in next Thursday and the cardiologist already said she was bumping the baby up to a 1.5 ml because of how fat she is - of course neither of us remembered that until after hanging up with the poison control folks.

 

When they say no good deed goes unpunished, I thought they meant for the person doing the good deed but mom and baby are in bed sleeping just fine. I'm up for the day.

[Skilly]

Good story. Glad everything turned out ok.

 

Funny how the baby was probably just sleeping through all of this, while Mom and Dad were going completely crazy.

[The Holy Roller]

A sleeping baby is always a happy ending. Thanks for helping us remember.

[AtomicCEO]

I wish I had a sleeping baby right now.

 

I do not wish I was up for 5 hours freaking out about a potential overdose though. Nothing makes me panic like worrying about a baby. My two year old? He's fine. I've seen him take headers into solid wood corners, bleed like a sieve, and come away ok.

 

But the baby? If he's congested and he makes a loud choking noise in the middle of the night and then goes quiet... I have to run into his room to make sure he's still breathing. Panic. Of course he's sleeping fine, but I have to poke him to make sure.