Earlier this week we were enjoying a normal day. Olivia went to daycare, Shan and I went to work. At 5:00 PM we got off work, picked up Olivia, went home and had a normal evening. Then when Shan was tucking Olivia into bed, she noticed something green in Olivia’s right nostril.
Shan: “Jon… there’s something up Olivia’s nose… I can’t get it out.”
I rushed into the bedroom and sure enough, there was definitely something in Olivia’s nose. Shan had already tried to use a bulb syringe to suck it out, but it didn’t work. So I plugged the left nostril and told Olivia to blow her nose really hard. She was able to blow air out around the object—whatever it was—so that didn’t work either.
Time to Get Serious
I ran into the bathroom and grabbed a pair of tweezers, then into the kitchen to grab a flashlight. While Shan held her down, I tried my best to get the object out of her nose. The whole time Olivia was screaming and crying. I got the tweezers on the object and pulled, but they slipped right off. It was then she started bleeding from the tweezers, so I immediately stopped.
Me: “Shan… get dressed. We need to take Olivia to the emergency room”
Emergency Room
It was around 6° Fahrenheit outside, so we got everyone bundled up and into the car for the short drive to the ER. Once we got there and were in the waiting room, I used my Blackberry to post an update about what was happening to my Facebook page. Then less than 15 minutes later, we were fortunate enough to see the doctor.
She used some nose spray and told Olivia to blow, but the object wouldn’t dislodge. Then she used her version of tweezers while a nurse, Shan, and I all held Olivia down. Screaming and crying again, the doctor couldn’t get the object out.
She then got a different pair of tweezers (or whatever the hospital calls them). Again, no luck.
Finally she grabbed something that looked like a dental pick. It was thin and bent like an “L” at the end. The doctor used this to hook around the object and was finally able to pull it out. It was a green craft bead.
Me: “Shan, do we have anything like that in the house?”
Shan: “No we don’t. She must have gotten it at daycare.”
Believe it or not, Olivia had that bead up her nose since sometime earlier in the day at daycare. She didn’t complain about it all evening, and we had no reason to look up her nose. We’re actually blessed that Shan happened to notice it at all before Olivia went to sleep for the night.
Daycare
The next morning I told Olivia’s daycare provider what happened. Apparently one of the older girls had brought the beads the day before, and the daycare provider didn’t find all of them. She apologized and told me she would inform the other parent what happened, and to never have her daughter bring the beads again.
The sad part about all of this is yet to come, when we get the bill. I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars this is going to cost us, but with another baby on the way, it’s money we wish we wouldn’t have to spend.
Oh well, it’s part of life. Olivia’s fine, and at least we’ll have a funny story to share with Olivia when she’s older.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This post is both dramatic and humorous. I loved the part where you updated your Facebook page (Whew, I’m not the only one…). I’m relieved to hear that Olivia’s ordeal is over. I’m sure she’ll never look at a craft bead the same way again.
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@Solo-Dad – Heh, yeah there is definitely some humor there. My favorite quote was from my sister, who commented on my Facebook page: “kind of funny in a twisted way – hope she is okay.” Yeah sis, she’s okay.
As for doing this again, Olivia is still only 2 years old. So there’s no guarantees she won’t see another bead and… well… who knows? The doctor did make her “cross her heart” promise never to stick anything up her nose again. I hope Olivia meant it.
Damn – I’m glad she’s okay and I’m even more glad that it didn’t require any thing more than a skilled doctor to pluck it out. Things like this scare me because, like you said, you never know what kids will find.
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