We're regulars at casualties

My heart drops every time and I'm sure my hair is going to start going grey very soon, I hate hospitals and I especially hate Alberton hospitals because quite honestly they all have terrible service and the buildings are all old so they just feel unclean but luckily we live 2 minutes away from a hospital because we seem to live there at the best of times.

Saturday was supposed to be a chilled morning with Aiden and my sister, my parents were away for the weekend and Aiden was playing in my room with some books on a side table. My sister very calmly says to me, "Um, Jess, I'm sure he didn't eat it but one of my Epilepsy tablets are missing"

"Um, I'm pretty sure he blady well ate it because that's what kids do!"

We began searching for the tablet hoping it had just fallen off the table and not actually been swallowed by my little man. I couldn't find it and I just knew what he had done and I knew it was essentially my fault. What to do was the next question, it was a small dose and I wasn't sure if it was anything to worry about.

I started phoning the 2 hospitals to find out not that either could help, and they gave me the line for the Poison Centre, no answer there, tried calling my mid-wife or a pharmacy, finally my GP said it's best to take him to hospital he might need oxygen and need to be forced to throw up.

Mad rush to get dressed as this was at 8am, get baby bag packed and find a medical aid card and off to another round in casualties.

They were pretty efficient getting us through the normal schlep of getting through to the doctor's area but had a wonderful hour wait for a doctor to actually check if my drugged up child was going to be okay. With every minute that passed I watched Aiden get more high. His eyes were droopy and glazed and he was a mad thing with tons of energy, but then he started getting sleepy and the new task of keeping him awake started. You would think when a 11 month old comes in for eating pills that aren't his, a doctor would get off his ass and help but nope, we waited and waited and waited.

Eventually we saw one and he said I could go home they would admit him and monitor him, ja right, I politely told him that I had stayed in the paediatric ward a few times and there was no chance I would leave my son there alone. Much to his dismay, I stood firm on this and he gave me the option of monitoring him at home as long as I didn't let him sleep longer than an hour and watch his breathing, he would be fine and eventually this fluffy pink elephants he was obviously seeing would go away within 8 hours.

This week I will be baby proofing like a crazy, neurotic person and I will be keeping my eye on him every second of every day.