I never thought I would hear of a Mortifying Mommy-Moment that would top the time my kids puked on Alice. What could possibly be more mortifying than having your kids puke on your brand new friend the very first time that she babysits them? Oh, I don’t know, maybe overdosing on WORM medication and having to have your MOTHER-IN-LAW call poison control and take you to the hospital????
No, thank God, this did not happen to me. But while I was home I had the chance to catch up with a mommy-friend of mine who filled me in on the whole embarrassing, mortifying, never-live-it-down story. Due to the excruciatingly high embarrassment factor of this story it took a lot of convincing to get my said friend’s permission to share this story with you all. But after a few bottles of wine and seeing all the embarrassing stuff I have shared with you already, she agreed. I promised said friend that I would not mention her name or any details that could be used to identify her. So for the purposes of this post I will call her “Sheen” after Mr. Charlie, who is the only person I know of who has done crazier shit than this, and her child will be known as “Bobo” just because I say so.
So how do you end up overdosing on worm medication of all things? Well, first of all, your child has to have worms. No, I don’t mean as a pet; I mean nasty little intestinal worms that you check your pets for but generally don’t think about you or your children getting. Sure, your grandma may have warned you that you can get worms if you eat raw eggs, but, as with most parental and grand-parental advice, you ignored it as archaic advice that did not apply in this modern day and age and kept eating that cake batter anyway. Yet apparently intestinal worms are something you (or more likely, your children) can still catch, but it is much more likely that they would catch them from playing in a sandbox than from eating raw eggs.
But regardless, Sheen found some little white critters in the potty one morning and did what any good mom would do – searched the internet and made herself crazy. Long story short – she talked to a doctor and ended up getting some medicine that was supposed to get rid of the worms. The only catch was everyone in the household had to take the medicine as they had all been exposed to the worms and could possibly be infected themselves. And did I forget to mention that they were living with her mother-in-law at the time? That would not be a conversation I would want to have with my MIL – “oh, btw, you should probably take a dose of this medicine tonight cause my child may have given you worms. But thanks again for letting us stay with you!”
Now in all fairness to Sheen, this must have been a very stressful situation. Anytime your child is sick it is stressful and having to live with your MIL would be no picnic either. So the fact that she accidentally confused teaspoons with tablespoons when she went to dose herself with the worm meds should be understandable and not an excuse for ridicule. Come on, who among us hasn’t done that while baking at one time or another? Sure, it should have been a clue when she emptied the whole bottle, but let’s give her a break shall we?
In the end it was Sheen’s MIL who noticed the mistake and called poison control while Sheen sat quietly in a chair pleading with God to not let her die from stupidity and an overdose of worm medication. Poison control were apparently not much help and just scared the you-know-what out of Sheen and her MIL by telling them to get to the nearest hospital ASAP – though they did call ahead for them so they wouldn’t have to wait in the emergency room. Apparently dosing yourself with worm medication makes you a VIP in the ER. According to Sheen the nurses did try their best to make her feel like it was not utterly ridiculous to overdose on worm meds – as Sheen tells it, one nurse said something to the effect that “just because we have never seen it here before doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen all the time.” Thanks Nurse Bullshit, that seems highly probable and not at all condescending.
Anyway, after being admitted the nurses had Sheen drink some sulphur concoction that was supposed to make her throw up, but halfway through drinking it the doctor came in and told the nurses that after careful consideration overdosing with worm medication did not warrant forced puking. So in the end Sheen was just made to stay for observation for a few hours and sent home. Where she proceeded to poop out black sulphur for the next two days. At least she could feel sure that she didn’t have worms.
So thank you Sheen. Not only have you educated us about intestinal worms and the dangers of confusing tsp’s and tbsp’s, but you have created a legend in Mommyland. From now on if anyone is having a bad day, all they will have to say is “at least I didn’t overdose on worm medication” and they will feel better. I’m just glad they won’t be saying “at least my kid didn’t puke on the babysitter” anymore. But I am sure that someone at some point someone will do something even crazier than overdose on worm meds and you will be off the hook. Maybe. Possibly. Ok, probably not. But thanks anyway.
-Wendy
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