Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Lost EpiPens on the Playground

I'm having a crazy-busy week getting my kids back in the swing of things at school, so this one will be short but I think it's a good reminder.

Our school's health aide told me that last year an Epi Pen was found on the playground and they never knew who it belonged to because it had no label. This is disturbing for many reasons, not the least of which is that an allergic student may not have had access to their Epi Pen in the case of an emergency.

I know we've got a lot of details to worry about as we enter school, such as getting all of the meds together in the first place. A lot of parents are wonderful at remembering to label all of their child's belongings but if (like me) you weren't born with the labeling gene, take a minute to make sure that you place an adhesive label on the container that your child's Epi Pen comes in. You should mark it with their name, teacher, grade and the expiration date of the medication. I also did this with my daughter's asthma inhaler.

The health office at your school is probably super-busy right now so if we can save them some time by being good little labelers, we will be generating goodwill while ensuring that our kids have the right meds with them if they need them.

4 comments:

CPA Mom said...

Good point. I'm going to put my Mabel's Labels on ours. Thanks!

AllergyMentor said...

Yikes! Thanks for the reminder. Everything is labeled except her epi-pouch and the contents. Ideally it would always be attached to her, but...you know. I'm on it as soon as she gets home.

kelly said...

thanks for the reminder jenny! i've been guilty of not labeling one of my many pens. oh how i wish i was more organized!!

Jean said...

Thanks for the reminder about labeling the epi-pens. My 4-year-old (with peanut and tree-nut allergies) starts preschool this week. Your advice has been immensely helpful.