Friday, March 5, 2010

"Normal" kids

Why does it hurt to meet "normal" kids Jailen's age? I don't wish for them all to have the issues that Jailen has, and I wouldn't change him if I could. I don't get it. Will I ever? Will it ever stop hurting?

Monday, March 1, 2010

Medications

Jailen is currently on 3 medications. He takes Baclofen which is a muscle relaxer, he takes Phenobarbital for seizures, & he takes Melatonin to help him sleep. My problem is that he doesn't swallow pills/tablets. He's just now starting to eat whole table food. The liquid form of Phenobarbital is so rediculously filled with alcohol that when I tried to give him that, he began throwing up before he even took the whole dose, then he smelled like an alcoholic for about 3 days. No kidding. So, what I used to do was get all of his medications in tablet form, buy some sugar syrup & liquid prescription bottles from the pharmacy, & my sister, who is a senior pharmacy technician at our local Walgreen's, would mix the tablets into liquid for us. This was somewhat of a hassle. It got very aggravating because then I would have to hunt her down & remind her 2, 3, 4 times that we were getting low & needed her to mix us up some more. Sometimes it was the last minute when he was ready for a dose that she'd come mix it. That was too close to call for me because these are some serious medications & he can't miss a dose. Anyway, I found a small independant pharmacy that would mix the medications into liquid at no extra charge as long as we filled the prescriptions there as well. I went for it. I thought how much easier is this!?! Well, it's been three months & last night Jailen took his last dose of Phenobarbital from a prescription that was supposed to last until the 10th of March. This means it was mixed incorrectly & he's been taking a higher dose than what was prescribed. Who is to blame for this? ME. Why? Because I've been unaware of how much liquid total we should have to make the month. Why didn't I think to monitor that?? I feel like such a jacka$$! With Jailen's prescriptions being mixed into liquids for so long, I only know how much liquid he is to take each night. I don't even remember the original prescription dosage in mgs anymore. I find myself to be slacking where it is the most important. I can't believe I've done this. Jailen's ok, thank God, but this could've been bad. At least it's only been about 3 weeks. Wake up call! Time to regroup & start over.