photo credit: ilamont.com

Today’s daily 15 minute task may save your life or life of someone close to you or at least make filling out papers at the doctors office easier.

Last week my husband went to the hospital for outpatient surgery. A half hour after the procedure was to begin the surgeon came out and told me that the surgery was called off due to a problem. The anesthesiologist couldn’t get a tube into my husband’s throat due to some issues. My husband was sent home without the surgery but feeling fine.

A few hours later while we were watching tv my husband’s lip was swelling and soon after his throat was closing and he couldn’t swallow or talk and was struggling to breath. I rushed him back to the hospital as fast as I could. I didn’t call an ambulance because I knew it would be quicker to drive the 20+ mile than wait for the ambulance to drive here from town. Plus if it got worse on the way there, we would actually be closer to help.

I was so happy to find out the emergency parking area hospital had valet service (because if they didn’t, I handed off the keys to my car to someone I didn’t know). We got into the waiting room, and in what seemed like seconds we were in a trauma room. It definitely helped us that we had been there earlier in the day and all of my husband’s info was in the computer.

The next two hours were a whorl wind of Trauma doctors, Nurses, Anesthesiologists, ENTs, Pulmonary Specialists and Surgeons. In the end, with a pharmacy of drugs injected into my husband, his airway cleared enough he could breathe on his own while sitting up, he was admitted into ICU at 2:00 am where he stayed for two days.

I am happy to report that he is home and doing great. The not so great thing is that it isn’t clear what caused this reaction. Two doctors think that it is one type of medication while his pharmacist says that there is a less than .01% chance of that. Basically, the doctors have taken him off his maintenance medications until he visits his primary physican.

The one question that came up over and over again while we were at the hospital – at least 20 times – was “what medications are you taking?” I was prepared for this as I am the person who always picks up the prescriptions from the pharmacy and I have all of our medications listed in my iPhone. Every time I pick up prescription I always double check the name and dosage on my iPhone to make sure I’m getting the right items. This really helped them rule out what it wasn’t (but still didn’t help us determine what it was).

Your Daily 15 Minutes – Take a piece of paper and all of your medications including supplements and write down the name of the medication, the dosage and how often you take it. Put a copy of this list in your purse, in your wallet or somewhere where you can find it easily in case of an emergency. Keep this list up to date and take it with you to all of your doctor appointments. Do the same thing for your kids and any other persons in your care.

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