This past week you have been reading auto-blogs. That is, messages written and posted for display on this blog well in advance of their appearance. This message, however, is recent; I wrote it just last night, to display this morning.
The week deteriorated on Wednesday where my partner realized that he had a prescription medicine mix-up. He received two meds on June 11 for a skin infection on his foot. He took the meds as directed. He ran out of one of them rather quickly, and had it refilled on June 16. We noticed that the pills in the second bottle did not match the pills in the first. He began to shake and he became, let's say, "quite upset."
I took all of the bottles back to the pharmacy. The head pharmacist admitted that they erred, in that they put the pills for two different meds in the wrong bottles. The unfortunate result was that my partner overdosed on one med, since it was prescribed at 3x/day, when he should only have been taking it 1x/day. At the urging of his physician, off to the emergency room we went for urgent blood tests and a liver test.
My partner does not handle medical emergencies well, especially when he is the center of the emergency. I advocated for him throughout the process, and took care of his needs. Thank goodness for Maryland's progressive laws, as I never once had to have an argument with anyone about my role in looking after my partner's needs, or receiving information from medical professionals about his condition.
Fortunately, the overdose was not of a medication that could do long-term harm, nor produced bad side-effects. The situation was more of a scare than anything else -- but it could have been much worse. Some have asked if we are going to sue the pharmacy. Our response is, "why?" They admitted the error, paid for the emergency room visit, and disciplined the pharmacist who made the error. The State Pharmacy Board is also investigating. While we likely have a "good case," a resulting punitive award just would spike the cost of medical care in the long-run. We aren't out to make money out of this. We just want things to quiet down and for my partner to be okay. He's okay; just frightened.
Anyway, I'll be back to blogging more actively now that my partner is okay and I can begin to get back to a more usual multi-tasking routine. This past week was rough, but we survived.
Life is short: read the package inserts!
1 comment:
Good to hear, good to hear. Tell Mr Partner to have a good rest.
Punitive damages - that's the hallmark of many trials where people try to benefit from it. I should know; I worked on legislation to protect consumer and service provider interests so that there is some kind of equity for both sides.
And this reminds me of an episode of House... which I won't tell you about, lest I cause any unnecessary fear.
Word verification for this post can be an answer to a cryptic crossword: laughter, laughter laughter... (5)
Post a Comment