Tuesday, November 11, 2008

BLOW, NOT SNIFF

I can't believe I forgot to add this story to my gaggle of posts! I may have been trying to block it out! So Monday after the funeral (Oct. 27) around 4:3o p.m., Colby comes up to me and says that Jacob shoved something up his nose...I pause here cause that's what I did when he told me. So many things were going through my mind I didn't know what to say!
'what did he shove up there?'; 'why did you let him so close to your nose?'; 'if it would have been me, I would have fought and screamed bloody murder to NOT let him close to my nose, why didn't you?'; and 'WHAT WERE YOU BOTH THINKING?' Definitely top the list!

I ask Jacob to come over and he vehemently denies doing it (of course), Colby denies doing it (of course) and I'm thinking, it must have flown up there of it's own accord! Either that or we have a poltergeist! Who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!
To make a long story short (too late!), after about 45 min., Colby fesses up and tells me he did it and it's from Justin's wreath. Another pause on my part as I was wondering how he got to the wreath. We hung it on the wall above our stairs, and it's a good 16 foot drop from the wreath to the basement!
Come to find out, there are small semi-soft foam ball on the wreath that have fallen off and he thought it was be 'good times' to see if one would fit up his nose. So, I think, an easy solution would be to blow his nose since I can see where it is. I get a tissue and say 'blow real hard', and suddenly SNIFF! Another pause here for the news to sink in that he has just SNIFFED IT UP EVEN FARTHER! I get him to blow this time and the stupid thing won't budge! I try
DESPERATELY not to panic (yeah, right) and text Dallas to let him know what shenanigans his 6 yr old has been up to. It is pretty close to the time he will be home so he says he will take a look when he gets there. After he tried to get it BLOWN out (not sniffed back up), he gets his coat on and says 'to the clinic we go!', as I get to wait at home and bite my nails! Actually, I thought they would be home quickly (minus the waiting time in the waiting room) since I know the urgent care doctors quite well (with 4 boys it's kinda hard to stay out of the place for long!) and thought they would take care of it. Also, luckily, my sister and mom were on there way with dinner for us so I wouldn't be alone for long, either. So I sit and wait...and wait...and wait! The minutes seemed to tick by, turning into hours. I thought, 'surely they haven't had to wait this long to see a doctor?' Finally I text him and asked him what was up and he comes back with, 'we may have to go to Pocatello to the hospital so they can call an ear, nose and throat specialist to get it out!' Another pause here...BECAUSE I HAVE FAINTED TO THE FLOOR!Not really, but not for lack of wanting to! To make a long(er) story short (far too late) it has taken Dallas, 2 doctors (one was our family doctor) and two nurses trying to hold down a 6 yr old to extract a bead from his nose, to no avail! It is as stuck as...I would say 'it was at first', but have to say...it was since HE SNIFFED NOT BLEW! Finally Dallas calls me and tells me they are headed to the pharmacist to get some nasal saline and would be home shortly. He comes home with saline that we have to squirt up his nose while he sniffed (he had that part down!). He had to do it 3 diff. times a half an hour apart. The theory was it would shrink the nostril or bead or something, so he could BLOW it out. If he couldn't blow it out, I would have to take him BACK to the clinic in the morning so they could put an I.V. in his arm to put him out so they could get the bead out...an I.V. ...just to get a BEAD OUT OF HIS NOSE! Leave it to one of my kids to go to the extreme! When they do something, they go ALL out! By the last dose we knew I would be back in the morning. So after we get the other boys off to school, us ready and Kyler dropped at my friend Kim's house, we went back to the clinic. I am fretting (yes, fretting) the whole way thinking, 'If they can't get a bead out of his nose, how are they going to put an I.V. in his arm?' I get to the clinic and let them know we're there and they get us quickly in. In march our family doctor, the other doctor from the night before, and the nurse The nurse brings out an assortment of (torture devices) medical tools and says they want to try one more thing before they schedule the I.V. They begin with a syringe that, if it would have had the needle in it, would have made an elephant faint. They use it to try and suck it out and then to push the air through the other nostril in the hopes it would pop it out. Of course that doesn't work, but don't worry they have many more (torture devices) medical tools to try. So they go on to a small tweezers, nope, still there. Then he pulls out this 10 in. scissor-looking device, but at the end there is a quarter inch alligator clamp. The other doc gets the nose light and nose spreader (that was a fun one!) and they all try again, but Colby keeps flinching and the doctor has to pull it out quickly before he gives him a bloody nose. They decide to use some numbing stuff for his nose, so the doctor squeezes this runny glue-like substance up his nose. He tells Colby it will be cold, but I wasn't prepared for the BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAM that comes out of his mouth! It was worse than when they were trying to pull the stupid thing out! They need to wait for the numbing stuff to work, so everyone else files out and the doctor hands me a cotton swab with more of the numbing stuff on it and tells me to rub more on the inside of his nose...I had seen what happened when that stuff was put up his nose and he wanted ME to put MORE up there! Sounds like fun! After calming down some and about 10 min. Colby finally lets me put more on, then 10 min. after that my doc comes back in and says lets try again. I wait for more people to come in then realize he means just the two of us! We give Colby a little (scare) pep-talk before we try saying, 'They will have to put a needle in your arm to make you go to sleep so we can get it out!' I (try to) hold the nose light and spreaders, while the doctor tries a couple more times which of course don't work! Finally, about 10:40, our doctor goes to get the other doc and two nurses to try ONE MORE TIME before we do the whole I.V. thing. At this time we have an appointment set up for 11:00 and I am getting myself ready to do the whole I.V. thing. Just before they all come back in I give another (scare) pep-talk to Colby. When the other doctor comes in, he brings YET ANOTHER type of tweezers, this one 12 inches, but has a full tweezer-like head on it. Our doc goes on the left with the light and spreaders, two nurses are holding down his shoulders and I LAY on his legs and hold his hands. We do a 1..2..3..and suddenly I hear 'IT'S OUT! IT'S OUT! WE FINALLY GOT IT!' You never saw a room full of such relief! Colby sits up with a big smile on his face and through now drying tears says 'I did it mom!' There was the congratulatory pats on the back all around and we are given the bead to take home as a victory prize!

Here is a picture

As you can see, it is less than half the size of a dime. Talk about a lot of fuss (not to mention 2 doctors, 3 nurses, a frazzles mom & dad, and four plus hours) over such a small thing!

What a nightmare!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I did that once with one of those air soft pellets-and no it wasn't lately it was when i was younger...much younger. At least blew my nose to get it out, luckily i never sniffed it up further. I can't wait until something like that happens with Keira.

Teri said...

My sister thought it would be fun to take tiny little peices and wad them up into balls and shove them up my little brothers nose, she did this for about two weeks until he started to stink. She thought it was funny when they had to guess what she had done...needless to say she got a beating when they had to take him in because they were starting to grow into the nasal tissue and had to be surgically removed.

Teri said...

little pieces of dryer sheets...that was what the pieces were..left that out.

Unknown said...

With all the drama, your kiddos have probably learned their lesson not to stick things in their nose holes. But kids being kids, if you face this problem again, close the childs clear nose hole with your finger. put your mouth over his...and blow. I know this sounds gross but it blows object out of nose, it's effective, and hey it won't be the grossest thing we'll have to do to our kids! We recently learned this method after my 5 year old stuck a gem sticker up her nose.