Moms are so ingenious! I learn new things from parents everyday and the saying inventions are the mother of necessity rings true again.
As I have been discussing in earlier posts, RSV has really been rampant these last few weeks, causing many babies to wheeze and a few of my patients had severe enough symptoms to require hospitalization.
A sweet 6 month old patient of mine was recently admitted to the hospital for a few days due to respiratory distress, and subsequently developed an ear infection (which is not uncommon) and was discharged on an oral antibiotic. Oh, did I mention that while the baby was in the hospital, the 2 year old sibling started to cough and wheeze as well and he was at home getting breathing treatments. When it rains, it pours!
Now that this family is on the mend, I had them return to the office for a post-hospitalization follow up and the mother said she had been a bit overwhelmed for the last few days. Poor thing! She said she was worried that she might mix up medication doses between the two children.
She then pulled out the box that contained the medicine for the 6 month old and showed me how she had drawn a calendar on the side of the box, with a square for each dose of medicine to mark off as she gave the dose. That way she was sure that she had given the medicine. It was like cross-checking medicines in the hospital to prevent dosing errors. How clever is that! No big chart, nothing fancy, but very practical.
She had brought along the medicine for her visit so I could see how well the baby was taking the medicine (which was not one of the better tasting liquids) and she had the perfect technique for administering the medicine as well.
So, this picture shows you how clever the bottle/box dosing calendar is. Of course she is a teacher, and I bet a good one!!
