A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Tony Johnson wrote about medication malfunctions in the ER. Of course, it doesn’t just happen there. Pet owners who give lots of medications often worry that they’ll make a similar mistake. At least I do. I don’t have to calculate dosages, thank goodness, because that would be a disaster, but I hand out multiple medications to two dogs twice a day. I have a system to make sure it gets done right.
First, the pharmacy helps by putting different-colored bands on each dog’s medication bottles. Bella is purple and Twyla is orange. Bottles without bands have a B or a T written on the lid with a Sharpie, and the name on the label is circled. (Partly this is so any pet sitters can easily find the correct bottle.) But I discovered recently that the band system has opportunities for mix-ups. I was walking out of Target last week with a new bottle of enalapril for Twyla when I noticed they had put a purple band on it. I wanted to go back and demand that they change it, but Jerry persuaded me that he could just put the old band on the new bottle. Luckily, they both take the same pills, just different amounts, but it could have been a more serious error if that weren’t the case and I hadn’t noticed it.
We keep all the pill bottles in a large zippered bag. At meal times, I pull out all of Bella’s bottles and put them to the left of the bag, Twyla’s to the right. Bella usually gets her meds first. After I look at the label, remove the appropriate number of pills from each bottle, and chop them up as needed, the bottle goes back in the bag. I give her the Vetmedin first because it’s chewable and she’ll eat it out of hand. Everything else (four additional pills in the morning, two in the evening) is wrapped in a bit of Pill Pocket, just enough to surround the pills. I think about which dog is getting this batch of pills, look at that dog, and then give the treat.
I sometimes think I’m being a bit too cautious, but in the past Jerry and I have both given or almost given the wrong meds to one of the dogs. Their prescriptions are similar, so it wouldn’t be a fatal error or even a serious one, but it does concern me that it could happen. Then Twyla gets her two pills while Bella circles me like a shark, waiting for the food to be set down.
I used to put the pills and liquid medications in with their food, but I’ve stopped doing that because they all run around licking each other’s empty bowls. I don’t want Harper to accidentally slurp up some sildenafil or to swallow a pill left behind.
Bella and Twyla’s meds are given with meals, so it’s easy to remember them, but when Darcy was taking medication she got it several times a day. We scheduled medication times on my now-defunct PDA and an alarm would go off when they were due.
That reminds me–Bella still needs her eye drops tonight.
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