Did I Wake You?

Don't you hate those middle of the night telephone calls? The first thought I get is that someone in the family is dead or maimed. Because of this, until this spring, I haven't had a phone in my bedroom. I sort of figured that either my husband would hear and answer the phone (I sleep like the dead), or I'd recognize I had a voice mail once I got up in the morning. The wisdom that comes with age dictates the dead can wait and because I got a good night's sleep, I'd be better prepared to cope with such an event.

Following a restless night, I was awakened at 8 AM by the phone that now holds a place of prominence in my bedroom. Although 8 AM may seem civilized to most of you, because I work nights, it actually equates to about a 4 AM wake up call for me. It took about 6 rings for me to even recognize what it was that was rousing me from the tenth bizarre dream I had last night. Note to self: don't ever eat Mjudara from that restaurant again.

The caller was from Rachel's Place and it would seem that there were issues at her school that needed to be addressed. Issues that were communicated to the caregivers at 4 PM yesterday (I know. That brings up an entirely different set of questions). The label on her medication bottle was incorrect. The correct instructions for her medications are 1/2 tablet 3 times daily and 3 tablets at bedtime. The current label reads 4 tablets daily. Wow! Is that not a glaring error to you? When I called the pharmacist, he was unwilling to fix the error without a new prescription, even though he could clearly see her history with this medication on his computer and the correct instructions were always there until April this year when something changed.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought preventing errors like this was the purpose of the electronic medical record.

Since I was up anyway, I stayed awake and waited to call both the pharmacy and the doctor, neither of which were open until 9. Don't think that phone isn't coming out of my room today. If this problem could wait from 4 PM yesterday until 8 AM today, it could have waited until I awakened on my own and checked my voicemail.