The Story of the Week

Just as I was beginning to work yesterday, Luke came into the living room with "stuff" all over his face. When I asked him what it was, he said, "Oh, Suzi and I were just drinking the squirty stuff."

The squirty stuff is an herbal concoction. I bought it help them get over their colds. They have all had earaches. A bactrial infection in addition to a cold, ie a viral infection. I had done a bit of research and thought this would be a pretty good remedy. There were some strong ingredients in the concoction, but the amount to administer was only 1 mL.

So, I FREAKED out when I found out they had drank the entire newly purchased 2 fl oz bottle. It was quickly revealed to me that Suzi had drank nearly 2/3rds of the bottle herself. I called my mom for her suggestion--since I was functioning on about 4-5 hours of sleep. (Eric was up ALL night coughing--he's been pretty sick.) Her immediate response was to call a pharmacy or poison control.

I was on the phone with Poison Control for 17 minutes. They doing research on each of the herbal ingredients only to find one particular ingredient causes the heart to slow down and seizures, another herb was a sedation herb. They tried calling the manufacturer to find out how much of each herb was in the concoction. They reply was, "Sorry, we have no idea."

The Poison Control representative got back on the phone unable to control the concern in her voice. "Get them to the emergency room NOW!" She said. "I will call the ER and let them know to expect you."

With shoeless children and little supplies, I loaded them up in the car and drove to the Logan Regional Hospital ER.

We were immediately admitted and the MD had a little chat with me. He explained the illusiveness of some herbal companies and the danger in their non-regulator practices. After spending a considerable amount of time looking at the bottle and ingredients, he decided to put them an a six hour monitor, draw some blood and give them charcoal.

The blood tests indicated toxicity. The charcoal was mixed with grape juice. Luke drank the "magic juice," as the nurse called it. Suzanne--the one in greatest danger--WOULD NOT drink the substance. We tried EVERYTHING with Suzanne--finally a wonderful male nurse edged her to drink as much as possible. He was awesome.

As the MD called it, the 6 hour camp out was long...we watched Suzi go through some extremes but nothing too dramatic (ie. no seizures or severe heart problems). We begged Luke multiple times NOT to jump on the hospital bed. We watched a lot of video and all felt restless. We were released after 5 1/2 hours.

It was undoubtedly the cherry of a week of sickness, fevers, coughing and weakness. Today, we are finally on the up and up. No one is fevering--that's the silver lining. The associated dark cloud is we are all still intensely congested with deep, moist bronchial coughs and sleep deprived. Except for Ryan, who has been battling an ear infection; he's finally doing much better today.

All in all, it was an overwhelming experience (mostly due to my sleeplessness). Thank heaven today is an new day with all medications put away.