I guess technically it wasn't my first ER visit- when Ryder came 8 weeks early- I went to the maternity wing via the ER. Ryder is also not my first kid to require a trip to the ER. When Lucas was about 4 and fell out of bed and hit his head on a nightstand when we were on vacation in Vegas, a trip to the ER was required- Eric took him. I am starting to notice a pattern with vacation's and ER visits....anyway... Monday was my first real ER visit.
Mondays are crazy days at our house. The elementary school has early out day, but the middle school does not. That means at 1:15 I have pick up at the elementary and then 1 hour later have to pick up Lucas from middle school.
I had a newborn photoshoot that morning that ended just in time for me to go to elementary pickup. I got Alex and Ryder and brought them home; they made their semi-regular after school snack of popcorn. They started watching a show, with the promise of doing homework as soon as I got back from picking up Lucas.
A quick run to the middle school and all would be well, as it usually is.
Not today.
While waiting in line I got a text from Alex.
Alex: "Mom, Ryder has a seed stuck in his nose. It was a popcorn seed."
What a popcorn seed in his nose? How did that happen?
Me: "Just keep him calm, I will be home soon."
Alex: "OK. You can't see the seed, before you could now you can't"
Me: "Okay, don't have him do anything, just sit calmly."
Alex: "Okay, he won't (do anything)"
I swear the pick-up line never inched so slowly as it did that day. I motioned for Lucas to hurry and get in the car then tried to remain calm while we slowly followed the traffic out of school.
"What happened?" I asked as soon as we got home. I checked his nose and couldn't see anything, I had him lay down and used the flashlight on my phone and sure enough, I saw something up a little higher. I tried to have him blow his nose, unfortunately has has almost zero nose blowing ability, always sucking in instead, so it was off to urgent care.
The wait was long of course, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We made it back to the room and the PA was one of the nicest ladies with the best bed size manner.
She helped Ryder feel so comfortable. She tried with some little scissor type things to get it out, no luck. She even tried to flush it out, he did not like that. She said she wished she had a little tube that she has at the other facility she works at, she even went around to some of the surrounding doctor's offices to see if they had it, no luck.
So off to the ER.
ER's are gross.
My husband builds hospitals, he will be the first to tell you how gross hospitals are. My experience with a hospital has been limited to my heart surgery when I was a kid and the maternity ward- which typically is the nicest part of a hospital. As we sat there for three hours, I began to believe his assessment.
As we sat in the ER I tried to get a better understanding of how Ryder got the popcorn seed in his nose. When I had asked him earlier, he told me he was doing "the worm". As he explained things more, it turned out he really was doing just that. He had just eaten some popcorn and had not cleared his bowl. One of the popcorn seeds must have fallen on the ground, and he was laying on the floor flopping up and down doing 'the worm', when -whoop- one big breath in and the small little seed shot right up his nose.
 |
| Waiting in the ER |
Finally our name was called, the ER doctor used the exact same tool as the one at Urgent care and easily got the seed out. She asked if we wanted to keep it, I said no, which Eric later chided me for saying no.
We drove through the ChickFilA drive-though to get some real dinner at about 8:00 P.M. then finally made it home.
Word to the wise, next time you are doing the worm, make sure there aren't popcorn seeds on the ground.
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