Holly Berries

This is a quick post to let all you mother's know that Holly Berries are poisonous. Why do I know? Well, Saturday the family was outside cleaning up the yard. Scott and I had just sat down on the swing, and Sawyer was playing with one of his tractor's and Braxton was playing under the deck and on the other side of the "HOLLY Berry Bush!" I could see his little legs going back and forth behind the bush and normally I go check on the kids when I can't see their WHOLE body. But not this time, I was snuggling with Scott and comfortable on the swing. Then about 3 to 5 minutes later.... here comes little butter bean, with RED JUICE all around his mouth! Talk about freaking out.... I ran over to him, saw he had about 5 or 6 berries in the crease of his jacket and one on his shoulder. I ran inside and called poison control. Not really thinking that it was going to be that bad. Well the calm lady then proceeded to ask me how old he was, how much he weighed... and the real question, "How many holly berries did he eat?" I proceeded to tell her that I did not know, but he had 5 to 7 on his jacket. Then she proceeds to ask me if I had some "Activated Charcoal Powder." Which I didn't. I knew that couldn't be good. She then told me that if he had ingested 5 berries or more then he could have severe diarrhea and throwing up and might have to be hospitlized from the dehydration... and even possibly bleed from his GI tract! GOOD LORD! 5 little berries will cause that??? Now that is when the real freaking out began. The lady then told me that I had 1 hour to get the Charcoal in him so it would stabilize the poison..... and she also told me that most retail pharmacies did not carry it... only speciality pharmacies did. And it just so happened to be 5:30 on a Saturday, so all the "speciality" pharmacies were closed. So, I called Lisa, all my friends, all my friends parents, the pharmacies around town (Garner and Clayton).... NO ACTIVATED CHARCOAL anywhere! Lisa and Michelle were looking on the Internet to see if they could find somewhere where I didn't call who had it... thank you very much for all the help by the way!!!

Anyway, to make a long story short, the poison control lady (Patty) told me that either I could take him to the emergency room, or just wait it out because we don't know how many he actually swallowed! So I chose to wait it out. Thankfully, Braxton must have not swallowed any because he was fine! They say that the berries are very bitter, so most of the time the kids will spit them out because of the taste. BUT, in the mean time, I went out and bought Activated Charcoal Powder at the Medicap Pharmacy in Garner this week. $18.00 for a little bottle, but priceless to have for my sanity!