Why isn't Poison Control a 3-digit Number?

The number to Poision Control is 1-800-222-1222.

I’m petitioning that it become a 3-digit number like 911.  I mean, if 411 deserves to get its own 3 digits, why doesn't Poision Control?  It’s just too big a number to try to remember when you need it.  Especially when you've never used it before in your life!

Case in point…

In addition to now being a biter, Joseph is also becoming quite a clepto.  You have to watch him every second of every minute. He likes to swipe things and hide them places.  Cell phones and remotes can usually be found in his blow up fort.  Cheerios are hidden in shoes and select corners of the family room to be consumed at a later date and time (much like what Harley does with his bones).  He even tried to get away with my keys the other day, but the clatter of them clued me in on what he was doing.

His new fascination is his diaper bag…unzipping, pulling everything out, and finding something that he knows he’s not supposed to have.  Sunday night while, while rummaging through his bag, he found the super secret inside zipped pocket where I keep all of the things that he is not supposed to get his little hands on. Somehow, he managed to unzip the pocket and come across the bottle of Children’s Zyrtec securely placed inside.  I saw it happening and motioned to grab it from him, a faint smell of cherry medicine blew by nose, and by the time I put two and two together to realize that Joseph had managed to remove the childproof cap (keyword being CHILDPROOF!!!), he had definitely had a good drink of his antihistamine.  Let me just say, this was the exact moment that 10 years were taken from my life!

I was in panic mode.  My auto pilot did not in any way “kick in.”  I couldn’t think who to call.  I didn’t know what to do.  Once it occurred to me to call poison control, I had no idea what the number was.  I mean, who does?  In my hysterics, I didn’t even think to look at the back of the medicine bottle.  I just immediately dialed information and circled the house three times looking for a pen to write the number down with.  Where the heck were all the pens?!  All the while, I was holding the medicine bottle, trying to gauge just how much Zyrtec he had gotten.  Initially, because the medicine was so syrupy and taking some time to settle, it looked like much more was missing from the bottle.

I want to give a shout out to Sally at poison control, who remained calm through my crying, as we tried to accurately measure how much was missing from the 4 oz bottle.  Once we determined that Joseph probably only got about 3-4 tsps (his normal dose is a ½ tsp) out of it (and much more seemed to be on his shirt than in his mouth) she asked me to hold.  The hold time seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only a minute or so.  When she got back on the line, she said that she felt confident in saying that based on Joseph’s weight and age, and according to all of the past case studies, he would be fine as long as he didn’t consume half a bottle or more.  She advised me to keep him up for an hour to watch him, and give him some juice to flush out the dose a little. As long as he didn’t vomit, he would be fine.  Holy relief!!  Thank you Sally for all of your help, and thank you for assuring me that these things happen despite the best of our intentions and carefulness.

I gotta say though, boy did the guilt set in. I’m feeling better about it now, but I think I received a few gray hairs, and several skipped heartbeats from this one!  Lesson definitely learned..

Not sure how he got a childproof cap off (and I'm seriously considering writing a letter to the company), but his medicine is now in a zipped baggie inside a zipped inside pocket inside of his zipped diaper bag…and the number to poison control is now on speed dial on every phone we own, and stuck to the refrigerator door.

Uggh.