Biggest Ace Scare to Date

So I left work early tonight because I needed to be home to oversee some work being done on our couch. I ran into Jodi in front of the house. She was just stopping by before she went out for drinks with an ex-co-worker. We came into the apartment and found our son passed on his bed. The nanny told us "he was so tired. He said he wanted to sleep." Its not the first time he's napped after school but something about this seemed odd. The nanny also asked us "why is the bathroom so sticky?" Of course we let her know that it wasn't sticky this morning. So my wife decided that our son needed to get up to eat his dinner on time. We was totally out of it. Eyes lolling in the head. Couldn't stay awake. Pupils huge. He was pretty incoherent. We could talk to him but he would make sense for a few moments then lapse into nonsense. Then he barfed. We asked him if he had taken any medicine and he said yes. She led us to the bathroom where we found a 7/8 empty bottle of children's allergy medicine (CVS Benedryl knock off). We had no idea how much he'd taken so Jodi ran to the car and picked Ace up to head to the Emergency Room.

As we were getting ready to head out the upholsterer called to say she was 5 minutes away from the house. Once I was sure Jodi and Ace were on their way to the hospital I went back inside and waited for the upholsterer showed up. We had been waiting ages to get this couch fixed and Jodi and I figured that two panicky parents aren't necessarily a good thing. The woman showed up and I waited until the upholsterer was done before heading out the to hospital myself.

When I got to the hospital I went into the first building I saw. Of course it was the wrong one. I ended up having to go through a total maze including a bridge and elevators. When I got the right building I thought I was looking for the emergency room. Holy shit was I wrong. The emergency room was completely full of the dregs of society. People were everywhere. Mostly it appeared to be people who don't have health care and need to go to the ER for little things. Some in police custody. Nothing seemed to be happening in any direction. Al the people looked bored. I did see a few banged up people but that was the miniority. I did two passes of looking into these curtains and cringing before I finally asked someone. "oh you need Pediatric Emergency. Thats down the hall."

Ace was still out of it when I got to the kiddy ER. His eyes were wild and his balance was way off. He was slightly more coherent but not normal by a long shot. The doctor seemed to think that at any rate he hadn't taken a lethal dose and then went off his shift. The next doctor came in and was a welcome breath of fresh air. He was in a good mood, full of good explanations and was really interactive with Ace. Ace got the whole medical work up. EKG. Heart rate stuff. Etc. Eventually they determined again that he hadn't taken a fatal or damaging dose. Just too much. He would have needed two bottles to be in the danger zone. They made Ace drink about 2-3 ounces of some kind of liquid charcoal. It looked so nasty. Somehow ace managed to choke 95% of it down. I was impressed. Normally you can't sneak anything past those pearly whites. The hilarious thing was that he got so much of it on his face that he looked like he was in the Insane Clown Posse. Hopefully ac doesn't remember that and become a Juggalo later on in life. By the time he'd be ready to be a juggalo they'll be on their 20th year reunion tour!

After about 4 hours we managed to get released. The boy was I'd say almost 90% back to normal and was super chatty and happy. After we got home Ace wolfed down a slice of pizza and a toaster pastry then finally gave into the exhaustion and became a screaming wreck. He was asleep in minutes. We kind of stressed the rest of the night but he was fine. The next morning were really watching to see if he had like brain damage or something but we finally agreed that the doctors would have told us if there were going to be side effects like that.

Jodi was concerned that everyone would think she was a bad mom but when she told people of course everyone had stories along the same lines from their own lives. I myself ate a bottle of sleeping pills at the age of 2-3 and needed my stomach pumped.

Needless to say that since this happened we are always checking up on Ace. I'm a little nervous that some electric event is up next. Thats how it worked with me. You can come to my house and see the nickel that I put put in a socket when I was a kid. I am going to put the plug guards in today.