Poison control update.

Nov 12, 2012

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Remember that story about MJ getting pine sap in her eye, and I called poison control from camp, and all turned out well and we didn't have to drive 45 minutes to an ER, and my vacation was saved, and so I wrote a blog post wishing I could send cupcakes to the poison control center, and ChristyP made it happen via the wonders of social networks?

The Hennepin County Medical Center liked the story enough to ask me if I wouldn't mind contributing an edited version to their "Faces and Stories" section of their PR/advocacy site. I didn't mind.

If you go there today (11/12/12) you'll see my 9- and 6-year-olds in the photo on this month's "Featured Story." They're fishing in the picture, because at the time I was calling Poison Control I was too busy to snap a photo of my screaming children for posterity. So we went with "an outdoor activity involving eye protection" instead.

Also, you'll see a picture of the poison information provider getting his cupcakes!

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The story, "Delivering Care by Delivering Information," will fall off the front page eventually, and I'll replace the link then.

Comments

7 responses to “Poison control update.”

Margaret in MN

November 12, 2012

Great story, Erin. My favorite bit was your line about coming off as a “repeat child-poisoner.”

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Rebekka

November 12, 2012

Awww.
I had to call the poison hotline the other day, for the first time. It turns out the silica gel in those desiccant packets that say “do not eat” is only a local irritant. Whew.

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Bearing

November 12, 2012

Rebekka, I once saw a set of statistics ranking the substances about which Poison Control is called most often. The silica gel packs ranked pretty high – I cannot imagine that people try to eat them often, but I bet the big block letter “DO NOT EAT” warning leads people to fear them more than objectively more dangerous items (like, say, random houseplants) that do not say “DO NOT EAT.”

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Jenny

November 13, 2012

I can’t help but notice the differences in the response of poison control where you are and South Florida.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barefootandpregnant/2012/09/twas-the-night-before-induction.html
I still can’t believe that Poison Control told her to call an ambulance and the ambulance said to call Poison Control.

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bearing

November 13, 2012

Yeah, that’s kind of a weird story, and TBH the fact that it is written in verse doesn’t make it any easier to understand. Maybe there was a miscommunication about what sort of medicine it was? Some “cough medicines” (e.g. those containing acetaminophen) would be a much bigger danger than others, if I understand it correctly.

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Jenny

November 13, 2012

That’s what I thought. Tylenol poisoning is dangerous and I wondered if the cough medicine had it or not.
I’ve heard it said that if Tylenol was a new drug being introduced today, it would not be approved.

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Rebekka

November 14, 2012

I’m guessing that a significant portion of the people who actually do the busting into the packets of silica gel are illiterate. That was certainly the case here. But, yes, it definitely looks dangerous.
Maybe they do it to differentiate from food that is produced in similar packaging? Sweeteners, salt, pepper, etc.

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