Las Vegas

Last weekend, we went to Las Vegas for the Mountain West Conference Basketball Tournament with some of Chad's family. BYU lost the championship game, but we had a blast watching basketball, swimming, and visiting Jay's new favorite place M&M World. (It's candy with letters on it, you can't beat it in Jay's eyes). We also got to visit our friends Mike and Emily and Jay got to play with their son who is about the same age as Jay.

No trip would be complete, however, without one event that increases every one's stress level by 300%. On this short trip it happened to be a poison control scare. Our hotel room(s) had two separate bedrooms connected by a common area. Jay walked into one of the bedrooms and shut the door in order to "take care of business" if you know what I mean, so we opted to let him be alone for a few minutes. When we went into the room a few minutes later, Chad discovered a blue pill on the floor that was obviously covered in Jay slobber. When Chad asked Jay about it, he just referred to the pill as "blue candy" (which by the way is amazing seeing as he really does not have a grasp of his colors...blue is typically his default color pick, so maybe it wasn't that amazing). We quickly studied the capsule and tried to identify what kind of pill he had half ingested, but found no identifying numbers or letters on the pill. Although Jay seemed to be doing fine, we opted to call poison control not knowing what this pill could do to him.

Then the stress level rises. The poison control man on the phone could not identify the pill either, so he told us we needed to go straight to the ER. When he found out we were from out of town, he advised us to just call 911 and have Jay taken in the ambulance because he was afraid we would not be able to find the hospital. I then lied to the poison control man and told him my husband knew his way around and that a 911 call would not be necessary (does he think we're made of money? Use an ambulance as a taxi, no way! We can read map!).

I would be lying if I said that we didn't look at going to the ER and as huge inconvenience. We both have had ridiculous ER experiences where they keep you for hours just for "observation" and really don't do anything to help you. Don't get me wrong, I care about my child's health first and foremost which is why we got in the car to head to the ER anyway.

Low and behold, as we pull out of our hotel, we see a CVS pharmacy right across the street. Since Jay was still doing just fine, we decided we would take a detour and stop by the pharmacy to see if they could identify the strange blue pill with a little person stamped on it in white. Sure enough, the pharmacist identified the pill as DetrolLA, a bladder control medicine for old people. More importantly, the pharmacist said that though he had chewed on and smashed the capsule, Jay didn't actually break the capsule to get the medicine out. Therefore, in her professional opinion, we had nothing to worry about.

When we got back in the car I immediately called poison control back to update them on our status. (If you've ever called poison control, you know that when you call they open a case on you and they keep track of you and call to check up on you etc.) First, the poison control person yelled at me for going to a pharmacy before the ER. When she finally let me explain what we discovered she cleared Jay and said we didn't have to take him to the hospital. Yay!

Wow, I probably sound like an awful mother for trying to get out of going to the hospital. I feel like we're just level headed adults with common sense and used our brains to solve a problem, is that bad? I did do the right thing and call poison control in the first place. Hopefully the old person who is missing his or her bladder control medicine is doing alright too.

Here are some pictures of the trip:

Jay focusing on the game

Yes, that tub of popcorn is bigger than Jay's head.

M&M World

Taking a ride in his new boat in the hotel pool.

Shortly after devouring his new found love, chocolate chip pancakes.