“She was fine, but my heart stopped, completely stopped,” Alayna Arnowitz said.

This is how Arnowitz felt after her 3-year-old daughter, Isabel got a hold of some of her medication. A call to poison control gave this Valley mother the tools she needed to make sure her daughter was OK.

Each year, poison control centers report that almost 1 million children under the age of 5 are exposed to potentially poisonous medicines and household chemicals.

“If you have the pill but don’t know what it is that you think they’ve ingested, you can call poison control,” said Cigna Medical Group’s Martha Moneypenny. “Describe the pill to them and their very good about figuring out what to do.”

Moneypenny is a nurse practitioner. And with Halloween being tonight, she wants to make sure kids don't get candy mixed-up with certain medications.

“It’s always important to remember that children can get candy and medicine mixed-up,” Moneypenny said. “So Halloween is actually a good time of year to remind ourselves of that, but it can really happen at anytime of the year.”

Moneypenny says some common mix-ups include aspirin which looks like Altoids; Motrin tablets resemble M & Ms’; and Ex-Lax looks a lot like a Hershey's candy bar.

So to make sure this doesn't happen, Moneypenny had some advice when it comes to putting medicine in a safe place.

“Not only having the bottles with the child proof caps, but putting those in a locked cabinet up high in your home,” Moneypenny said. “You only take medicine from mom, dad, or a responsible party, the schools nurse, something like that. And that you don’t take medicine from other children.”

If you’re looking for another alternative to trick-or-treating in your neighborhood, then why not check out “Malloween” at Desert Ridge Marketplace on Oct. 31? Cigna Medical Group is one of the sponsors.

The kids have an opportunity to get all kinds of goodies at the stores from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. If you would like to find out more details, please visit www.shopdesertridge.com, or call 480-513-7586.