Rat Poison Jakers

 Do those three words fit together easily and comfortably in your brain?  Not mine, either.     

Today we had a rather large scare while visiting with Grandma and Grandpa.  We were playing Canasta, and the kids were all together watching TV and playing with Legos.  Our 3 year-old came over to us adults and told on her brother: "Jakers made a big mess with soap."     

Usually, we don't bother with this kind of thing.  But I thought it might be liquid soap, and that would be unpleasant, so I went over to check it out.  And Jakers had a lot of rat poison spilled on the floor.  There was also some in the pantry (whence it came).  We had no idea if he had eaten any, or how much if he had.  I swiped his mouth, but didn't find annything, and I didn't see any color, either.       

So we abandoned the game, and Katrina and I drove out to McKenzie-Willamette hospital in Springfield.  The ER took us straight back after they'd gotten his name, hooked up his little foot to a heartbeat monitor, and called poison control.  We had brought the box of DCon with us.     

The result?  After getting a dose of charcoal ready for him, filling us with images of how the vomited charcoal would be everywhere, but toerhwise being very helpful, the doctor told us that in rat poison cases, poison control doesn't recommend doing anything.  Turns out the failure mode the poison brings out is a vitamin K blocker.  So your body stops making clotting factors.  When that happens, the poisoned creature bruises easily and bleeds to death.       

So the hospital sent us home after taking our home phone number and giving it to poison control.  If we notice bleeding when brushing his teeth, then he'll get a vitamin K supplement.  In any case, nothing to worry about, just something to monitor.      

We got back in the car and said a prayer of thanks that we were going home with our little boy.  This day could have been so much worse.  It turned into a good lesson on child safety (grandma and granpa won't have that stuff where little fingers can reach it any more) and thankfulness to God for his mercy and kindness to us.