Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Medication Safety

Those blue eyes! Those smoochable cheeks!

My grandbaby, Marcus the Marcusaurus, has just acquired an exciting skill -- this kid is mobile! He's crawling and pulling himself up to stand, so walking won't be long in coming.

How exciting! Grandma and Grandpa are thrilled. Mom and Dad are exhausted.

I predict that these two will keep their family on their toes. 

So after I heard the news and squealed joyfully over the videos, I started looking around my house with a new perspective. Suddenly I saw grandbaby danger around every corner. So we bought the outlet covers, and are ordering kitchen cabinet locks, and a couple of heavy duty baby gates. When I stood in our bedroom scanning it for safety issues, I realized that my medication basket perched on my bedside table would be a huge hazard.

Everyone knows that any medications, including over the counter meds and vitamins, can poison and potentially kill children. But my bedside basket contains an especially lethal bunch of bottles.


I keep my meds plus a big old water bottle at my bedside since I take all my meds in the morning and at night. But no more -- this is a baby accident just waiting to happen.

Can you imagine what would happen to a child if he/she ingested potent immunosuppressants? Or any of my neuropathy meds? And to make matters even worse, I use caps for the bottles that are not childproof due to my arthritic hands.

But really, is there any childproof cap that IS actually childproof? I'll never forget the sight of daughter #1 uncapping a bottle of toxic furniture polish that was supposedly in a childproof package. She had that thing open and dumped upside down in a flash. I'm thinking that simply replacing the bottle caps wouldn't keep my medicine safe from any child with our family's genetics.

It was obvious that all this potentially dangerous stuff needed to be rounded up ASAP. It is going to be stashed in a closet armed with a lock. But my prescription meds make me extra uneasy, so I bought a lock box that will hold these especially dangerous drugs.


Where do you keep your medications?

If anyone has suggestions for grandchildproofing in general share them in the comments below. Given the mischievous proclivities of our children, I have a feeling that our grandchildren will be equally............problematic. Smile.

We'll need all the help we can get.

3 comments:

annie said...

You have an adorable little munchkin for a grandson, and he's grown so much from his last picture! Bless him.

Don't they look the picture of innocence??!!...

So far there are no little ones around the house to worry about my meds but my meds are in a kitchen cupboard. I sort my pills and put them in a 7 day pill dispenser that has AM and PM. That way I know my pills will be taken and not forget to take any, which happened when I kept them in their individual bottles.

Sue said...

Your grandson certainly is adorable and I am sure he will give you all a run for your money.

We don't have any little ones here although my son does have multiple disabilities so I keep my pill bottles on the upper shelf of a cabinet in the kitchen where he doesn't have a prayer of reaching them. I use a docette that stores a weeks worth of pills according to day and time so I don't forget a pill but I store that up there as well and only bring it down at breakfast and supper time.

My daughter was a climber and when she was 13 months I caught her trying to teach her older brother (who was three) how to climb the entertainment centre and hutch. It was darn cute but definitely a big no no.

You may want to make sure that all dressers, book cases, etc are screwed to the wall. All of ours are still secured to the walls because someday, hopefully, my daughter will have babies of her own.

Enjoy the fun. They don't stay small for long.

Jenny P said...

Just anchor everything! I'm sure John will do it in a flash - and don't forget TVs if they're not mounted on the wall. Those foam thingies for the corners of tables, too. But you've been through this, there may be new gadgets now but kids themselves aren't so different at that age from the ones you raised, right? :D

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