The Case of the Frozen Epi....

 

It all started one evening that was much like any other evening. The Hubs and I had just returned from the grocery store, and little miss was in a state of tragic exhaustion. As you know, when two year olds get tired, they also get very irritable, and when a two year old gets irritable they are very good at expressing said irritation. So my Mom brain instantly switches to survive until she's in sleep mode. The plan...I take Mazzy into the house kicking and screaming, preferably without injury to either one of us. Pin her down long enough to change into p.j.s, and snuggle her to sleep. While I'm doing this my sweetheart has volunteered to carry in the groceries. After a hectic 45 min. little lady is sleeping, and my sweetie and I are headed to bed ourselves.

So, here in Utah it is very cold in the winter. It often gets down into to teens during the night. In fact on the night of this incident I believe the low was about 15 degrees. And, as anyone with an epi pen knows, it should not be allowed to get below 67 degrees.

When I woke up the next morning it just felt like a good day. The sky was blue, and the ground a crisp and sparkly white from a light dusting of snow. Mazzy woke in a sweet and excited mood, I was having a particularly good hair day, and my darling was giggling and teasing with Mazzy while I got ready to go to our Sunday services. I was just thinking to myself what a lovely morning we are having when I reached for my lip gloss...where is it? Oh! I left it in my purse...where is my purse? After marching between my different "purse spots" several times, I finally stopped and let the dred set in. The only place I hadn't checked was the car. Without even putting a coat on, I slipped my husbands giant snow boots on and clumsily tromped out to our car. With a groan I saw it there on the other side of the car seat. My purse/ the epi pens had officially spent the night in the car freezing. It's okay, I got this I told myself...the pharmacy has another rx on file. I'll just run pick it up, and we'll be off to church as usual.  This might have been the case if our insurance hadn't just switched, but after 2 hours trying to track down our new insurance number on a Sunday, and a couple trips to the pharmacy to sort things out we still didn't have all the info we needed, and would have to wait until our insurance opened back up on Monday. The thought of living with out an epi for 24 hours terrified me.

 Mazzy stayed with us in the adult classes that Sunday, and had to miss out on her beloved nursery. And then the family party later on was an even bigger source of anxiety than usual. When it all comes down to it we were able to replace the epi's. But, I definitely learned a couple gems of wisdom in the whole fiasco of it all...

1. Have a set of "take along" epi's that stay with us on our outings. As well as a back up set that stays home in a temp controlled medicine cabinet.

2. We are so blessed to have insurance. The cash price of $876.00 almost made me faint when I heard it. My heart goes out to those that struggle to find a way of having this life saving medication on hand.

3. I need to find a way on reminding myself, even in the hectic moments, to make sure the epi's are accounted for and usable. I set an alarm on my phone. Here's to hoping that works.

And last, I learned that if my husband and I work together as a team we can take the steps needed to keep our most precious treasure safe.

The End.

What clever ways have you come up with to keep your epi's close at hand? Please tell me I'm not the only one that struggles with this. Let us know in the comment,s or on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Talk-For-Me-Tees/215850248581440