Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Emergency Prep for Keto Families

I've been thinking about this topic for awhile. In fact, being prepared for emergencies, of any kind is a big job. For Keto families, it's a bit overwhelming. Here are a few things we have done to make sure that we are prepared during emergency situations so that Noah's Keto lifestyle could continue undisturbed.
  • Noah's school teacher has my cell number and I have hers. You actually have about 30 minutes of texting capability once an earthquake or other disaster occurs. Often times, the landlines go down or are used only for emergency services. Cell coverage will go down sometimes too but you can get about 30 minutes of texting after a disaster.
  • Out-of-State Emergency Contact - My Mom lives in a different state than we do. In the event of a large natural disaster, it is easier to contact someone that lives in another state than in your own area. So, my hubby and I will both contact my Mom in order to communicate if necessary. My children's schools also have my Mother's phone number.
  • 2 "Old People"Style Pill boxes: At any given time, we have two 7 day pill boxes prepped with Noah's meds/supplements. If we had to evacuate our home after an earthquake, we would grab these pill boxes and dash out the door.
  • Prescription bins. All prescriptions bottles are kept in a plastic tupperware like bin. The kind that cost $1 at Target. (Yep that's me - big spender ;p - I also use these type of bins to keep my shoes in with a nice label on the outside of the bin describing the shoes. )
  • Keto Binder - The Keto Binder and scale have a designated spot in our cupboards. Within the binder are simple recipes, non-cream recipes, complicated recipes, medical records, list of low carb meds, daily meal and med schedule and Noah's seizure protocol plan.
  • Emergency Diastat bag. Hanging on the wall near the door to the garage is a miny backpack with the bulb syring, diastat and stop watch. Easy to grab on the way out the door.
  • 72 Hour Backpacks. You can look these up on the net and create your own. Basically, it's very simple survival foods, water, clothes, meds, first aid kit and flashlight. It can get you through for 72 hours. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
  • Practice Practice Practice. Yep, we did! We had an emergency drill. It was initiated by the Emergency Preparedness at our church. She randomly requested that we try to evacuate our home for 24 hours; suddenly & unexpectedly. She called our home and described an emergency earthquake scenario and told us that she would check on us in 24 hours to see how we managed. We jumped to it. Bry and the boys grabbed their 72 hour backpack kits. I grabbed the Keto stuff, tossed it in a cooler, grabbed the pill bins, the mini backpack, the emergency waterbottles. Bry grabbed the tent and blankets and we camped in the backyard for 24 hours. We were out of our house in less than 10 minutes and set up in the backyard within 20 min. My boys loved the practice and it was very empowering to know that we could do it! We could do it even with the Keto stuff. Awesome!
**Little tattle - Bry went into the house after the boys were asleep to take care of his emergency need for watching ESPN. Sometime around 11pm, I heard my oldest son say...."Ummm, Mom? Why is Dad in our house when we are pretending that it's condemned and sleeping out here in a tent?" Hahahaha. Busted!)

Hope that helps!! I love my Keto Kid!
 

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