Fool proof medications (I'm the idiot).
Okay, here is the little routine I worked out. Breakfast tray: all meds except the evening ones into blue Chinese man egg cup. At the same time, dispense lunchtime meds into rabbit egg cup. Rabbit back into cupboard, blue Chinese man on breakfast tray in to mother. It's worked fine.
This morning, for some reason I am at a loss to explain, I managed to leave the rabbit on the breakfast tray. And didn't realise until I went into the cupboard for something else and thought eh? Where's the rabbit?
Oh @¡*&@€!!!!! Ran into mother's room, and of course - why wouldn't she? - she's taken the lot. Both sets of meds. And is sitting there happily sipping her tea.
So…How are you feeling, mother :)? Fine. I reread all the patient information leaflets. Hm. If I call doctor daughter for advice, she will say don't worry. If I call doctor SIL for advice, she will say straight to ER. So I call our national medical advice service and wade through their five thousand question assessment before being reassured, 30 minutes later, after they've consulted the Poisons Unit, that there is probably no cause for alarm. Unless mother falls unconscious, becomes dizzy or breathless, bleeds profusely or develops blistering around her mouth, in which case I should call them back (from the car, at 90 mph on my way to the hospital, is that?).
Happy ending: the major injury is bruising, to me, as I kick myself all round the room for doing such a fat-headed thing. But, ok, dosing errors happen in the best of circles - what are people's top tips for getting this RIGHT EVERY TIME.
I've got three of those dispensers, so can set up three weeks at one time. Much easier to get my production line going to set up her meds that way. Don't beat yourself up, we've all made medication errors one way or the other. It just goes with the territory.
Get youself a medicine box and put out all the meds for a week. This not only saves a lot of time but lets you see you have actually given them. At the appointed time you just tip that section into her pill pot and bingo all done. I do this for myself and tried to get hubby to let me do it for him but no luck "Hands off my meds" variation on "Don't touch my stuff" so when I do get round to vacuuming I have to go round the piles of paper. Have youself an early gin and tonic and RELAX
You can always call the pharmacist if you have a question. They're easily accessible and you won't have to go through a 30 min. screening to get to a human. The pharmacist will be able to tell you if you need to worry.
One day when I opened my pill box at work the contents didn't look right. I recognized them as Coy's pills! I called him immediately, but he'd already taken the pills I'd left behind for him. Well, I assured him, he didn't have to worry about getting pregnant that day. It would have been more serious if I didn't bother to really look at the pills and had taken his, because his were more serious pills!
Mother's fine, thank God (I'd had visions of double-strength diuretics shrinking what's left of her brain to shrivelled up tissue paper). Bit quiet, but noshing her dark chocolate and watching highly inappropriate TV.