Attention Seeker

Jackson again.

Which is funny ... because he's such a low profile kid who's rarely in trouble, by default I get to write about him the least.   Hayley and Eli usually dominate the spotlight.

Not lately.  This is Jackson's low key way to get up to the top of the attention wall.  Maybe.

It was around 8pm.  A normal Wednesday evening.  Quiet.  Jackson was doing homework (shocking) and I was folding laundry in my room.

My phone rings.  Number I don't recognize.  Normally, I wouldn't even bother to answer.  But Eli wasn't home so wanted to make sure he wasn't in some kind of trouble (yea, this has happened).

"Hi, this is *something inaudible I can't understand* from King Soopers.  Is Jackson around?"

Weird.  I go to his room and hand him my phone.  I was assuming it was someone calling him for a job position.

I make my way downstairs to do what mom's do on a Wednesday night and start washing dishes.  I hear a big thud upstairs.  Then Jackson running down the stairs shoving my phone in my face saying "TAKE THIS AND TELL HER THE EXPIRATION DATE" as he runs back upstairs to the bathroom as I see bandaids flying behind him.  I look up and say "Who is this?" and he tells me I just need to talk to her because he just injected himself with his Epi Pen.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Amazingly I am calm as I hold the phone up and say "can you tell me who this is and what is happening?"   To which I get a cheerful "oh hi I'm the pharmacist over at kings and theres a recall on Epi Pen's and I need the expiration date on the one Jackson has"   To which I am now watching horrified up the stairs as he's jumping up in down in pain holding his hand, ready to let a scream out.  So my response was "I'm so confused and I don't know what's happening but my son just injected himself with his Epi Pen and I don't even know why he has that thing out".   Silence on the phone.  Jackson finally starts screaming.   She's stammering ... tells me to hang up and call urgent care.  They are closed.  She calls and says take him to the ER.

Our typical Wednesday night sure turned on a dime.  On the way to the hospital, as his thumb is swelling, he tells me she called him to ask for that expiration date.  She was explaining where to find it and had him take it out of the case.  He was looking all over and accidentally set it off.  Right into his thumb.

All was well.  He didn't lose a thumb.  The only concern was how much room is in a digit for the blood vessels to swell because of the medication injected.  He was fine.

But, true to his nature .. the way to the ER he kept repeating "I have homework to do.  Like I have so much studying.  I better NOT get a bad grade tomorrow because of all this."  That's my boy.

However, we now need a new Epi Pen.  Know how expensive those are now?  And just for safety sake, I was able to check the expiration date and this pen was not part of the recall.

Why oh why couldn't she have just asked me as the parent what the exp date was.  Instead, have a 17 year old boy look for it.  FAIL.