Highest Rank #61 in Fanfiction! Juliette McGill finds the perfect position as a nanny for a young boy with special needs. Only when she arrives at the family's home in British Columbia, she discovers that the boy is not quite what she expected and t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The next day, I got an email back from Charlie that was less than helpful. He basically told me that he couldn't give me medical advice for Harry because he'd never seen him as his patient. So I dialed his number to talk.
"Okay, just hear me out, please," I said.
"Sure," he answered.
"First of all, if I haven't noticed any symptoms that would require this new medication, Reglan, do you think it's okay if I just don't give it to him?"
"I..." he hesitated.
"Charlie, I'm just asking for advice, okay? I promise I will never mention you in any of this. No one will know I've talked to you and you won't get in trouble for advising someone who isn't your patient. This is friend-to-friend, brother-to-sister, all right?"
"Fine," he said. "Completely off the record."
"Yes," I confirmed. "Absolutely."
"Because you know that if anything happens to him, it's on your head," he said.
"I get it, just tell me what you think," I said impatiently.
"I don't think you should give him the Reglan, both because he hasn't had symptoms and because it has major interactions with Abilify and Thorazine."
"Okay, that seems like a no-brainer, then."
"Also, he's taking several Central Nervous System drugs, which means they act primarily on the central nervous system to control the symptoms. Patients are usually given no more than three of these kinds of drugs at a time. Harry is taking six. And with the Elavil, it would be seven."
"Holy shit."
"No kidding," he said. "So don't give him the Reglan or Elavil, for sure. And cut down his Ambien systematically. I'd say lower it to 5 mg for three nights, then cut the pill in quarters and give him 2.5 mg for four nights. You could try to get it to zero, but he might need it as you lower some of his other meds.. He will probably get some rebound insomnia, but that's normal, okay?"
"Yep, got it."
"After you've reduced the Ambien, I think you should reduce the amount of Thorazine he's taking." And he gave me step by step instruction for cutting back his dosage. "But again, remember that I haven't examined him and I don't know his medical history. But those are changes I think you can make without causing major problems. I honestly don't think it will hurt him to just not add new medications, and Ambien is an addictive sleep aid that should never be used for longer than a few weeks anyway." He paused to catch his breath. "Why is he taking so many damn medications?" Charlie mumbled.
"You're asking me?" I said. "This is why I came to you. His father is either psychotic himself, or he's trying to poison Harry slowly. Or, I have a theory, but it might seem really far-fetched."
