Yesterday was a little frightening for our little family. As many of you know, we are living with Gordon's parents for the time being until Gordon gets a job with a livable wage. Anyways, yesterday morning, Gordon's mom left out a bunch of pill bottles that she had prepared for an upcoming trip. She left two small Ambien pills {sleeping pills} by themselves in front of all the other prepared bottles, not realizing they were in a spot Brooke could reach them.
She left to run errands and I didn't even know there were those two open pills there on the table, until Brooke started chewing on one and started spitting it out, or trying to spit it out. {It was so small that it dissolved pretty quickly.} When I got to her I saw the white residue on her tongue and I couldn't really wipe any of it off. Also, because she had chewed the pill it would start working faster.
Thankfully, there were two pills there and she only ate one so I could identify what she had taken after I called poison control.
I am so thankful that there is a number to call when things like this happen. The nurse I was talking to was wonderful! After the initial first phone call, she said she would have to call me back to check with the ER doctor {who was also a toxicologist} to see if hospitalization would be necessary. She called me back and told me that I should not leave her side. She would act very tired, drunk almost and loopy. She said that the only thing that we would need to watch for was her breathing. If she fell asleep {which was inevitable} we would have to try to wake her every 10 minutes to see if she would respond to our voices, slight movements, etc. If she did not respond, then the sleeping pill would have put her into too deep of a sleep which would effect her breathing.
As I was on the phone with her this second time {which was maybe only 10 minutes after she had taken the pill} Brooke started acting really funny and it was strange and scary to watch. She could hardly keep her head up, or her eyes open. She wanted to walk, but really couldn't without falling over. She couldn't even sit up without support. I fed her a little bit of food to keep her awake longer {taking Ambien on an empty stomach makes it more effective, so I needed her to eat} but not too much because nausea was a side effect. At one point she was just lying on the ground watching TV and out of no where she started to cry and whine and pointed to her stomach and said "belly belly belly". That really got me freaked out so I called Gordon and he came right home. Brooke talked normally, but was very sluggish and stayed cuddled on my lap watching tv for about an hour--without falling asleep. At 2 pm the nurse called us back to see how Brooke was doing and by that time she had finally fallen asleep. The nurse was really surprised that we were able to keep her awake as long as we did because the pill is so powerful. So, at that point we were to monitor her breathing. I stayed in her room with her and woke her every 10 minutes just like the nurse wanted us to. After the 3rd or 4th time though, she started to cry because she probably didn't want to be woken up/thought I was so annoying for not letting her sleep. She woke up and after that, it seemed like she was back to her normal self. We still were to not let her go up stairs, walk, run, etc. with out someone right there, but she seemed to be more awake and wanted to get down and move. It helped that her cousins were over and Gordon took her outside--she loves being outside. So, since the pill is supposed to be effective for 6-8 hours, it was only until about 7pm that night that the pills effects should be totally gone.
Luckily and thankfully nothing more serious happened. I am so grateful to have a healthy little girl!
