Saturday, April 27, 2013

Old Enough To Know Better

When Son-One was twelve, he needed some push pins for a school project, so I brought home a handful of boutonniere pins from the flower shop where I worked at the time. The pins were about an inch and a half long with a pearly acrylic teardrop on the end.

Son-One had been working on the project for several hours when he wandered into the living room, where his siblings and I were watching some mindless, marginally entertaining show on Nickelodeon. He announced that he was taking a break and he sprawled out on the floor beside Son-Three.

We were all laughing at a particularly hilarious moment in whatever show it was when Son-One jumped up and said, "Mom, I did something really stupid. Am I going to die?"

Without knowing what stupid thing he'd done, but fairly certain that nothing life-threatening had occurred right under my nose in the middle of Angry Beavers or whatever it might've been, I immediately reassured him, "No, you are not going to die, but what did you do?"

Son-One held up one of those inch-and-a-half long pins and said, "I swallowed one of these." He said he had been chewing on the little plastic end when Son-Three, in a fit of hilarity, had nudged him in the shoulder, jarring him just enough that the pinhead had slipped from between his teeth and the pin slid down his throat.

"You are not going to die," I said again, though my heart had begun to race a bit at that point with visions of emergency surgery dancing in my head. "But I do think we should probably go to the emergency room."

When we got to the hospital, the ER waiting room was packed, but it's amazing how quickly you move to the head of the line when you hold up an inch-and-a-half long pin to the receptionist and say, "My son swallowed one of these."

We were ushered in immediately and Son-One was in x-ray within fifteen minutes. They could clearly see that the pin had made its way to his stomach, which the doctor said was a good thing. He said that since it had made it that far without getting lodged anywhere, it was likely that it would "pass normally" within 24 to 48 hours. We were instructed to come back right away if Son-One experienced any sharp abdominal pains or any other unusual symptoms, which, blessedly he didn't.

I assume the pin "passed normally," but I can't say with absolute certainty that it did, which is another blessing, if you ask me.

X is for X-ray

13 comments:

  1. Reminds me of my 13th summer when I stepped on a needle. Unbeknownst to me, the needle broke off in my foot. When the foot was still hurting a month later, and when the red blood poisoning line began to develop, they did an xray and saw a piece of needle in my foot. Oops. Did some serious digging and voila! No more needle. But I still ran barefoot everywhere.....

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    1. Oh, I'm a barefoot girl, too Gracie. And I had a very similar experience with the tip of a wooden toothpick that wedge itself so deeply in my toe that it lived there for almost a week before becoming infected enough to resurface on its own. Sad to say, that happened last year. ;)

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  2. What a great story! I was five when I stuck a bead so far up my nose it had to be surgically removed from my sinuses. I think I was trying to sniff and snort it out and it kept moving higher. Oh man...

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    1. Son-One got a piece of "egg crate" style bed padding stuck up in his sinus when he was about seven. I don't know what it was about that kid and sticking things where they did not belong. There was just enough of the foam protruding that I was able to get it with tweezers. Can't even imagine a bead!

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  3. OH MY GOD. This would've happened while Joe was at work because all the crazy sh*t happens with Joe at work. Nice job staying calm. I swallowed a half-row of pennies once and didn't tell anyone because I was scared of getting in trouble for "wasting money."

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    1. Oh my word that sounds like something that would happen with me. The "wasting money" bit. :P

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    2. I love the "wasting money" thing. HILARIOUS! I was one of those stay calm 'til it's solved then freak out kind of moms. Still am, but now that they're out in the world, they freak me out a little less or at least in different ways. ;)

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  4. I'm echoing Marianne. I admire your calmness. I don't remember if I've ever swallowed anything.. choked on things once or twice.. not sure if I ever managed to actually swallow.

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    1. It was fake calmness, for Son-One's benefit. I personally think MOST Mom calmness is fake calmness. It's one of those secrets we don't like to let slip. ;)

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  5. I am feeling lucky that all my kids ever swallowed were quarters, rocks, and dirt.

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    1. It's funny how everything's relative. Shortly after this happened, a girl across the street (whom we all called Ashley Across The Street to differentiate her from the other Ashleys) swallowed a hoop earring which had to be surgically removed. All of a sudden our adventure seemed mild in comparison. :)

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  6. Guess the moral of the story would be to buy real push pins that are 1/4 inch long and not assume kids know not to put them in their mouths. Egads, why do kids put things in their mouths, and why do siblings feel the need to cause trouble. Which makes me wonder...the trouble making sib...was he punished for jabbing him while he was working on a project?

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    1. Son-One was actually not working at the time & Son-Three didn't mean any harm. He just nudged his brother over something funny on TV, not knowing his brother had a pin in his mouth. I was amazed that at twelve, Son-One could not be trusted NOT to put a pin in his mouth, but right around this time, I heard about a seventeen-year-old boy getting a Lego block lodged in his throat and requiring the Heimlich to remove it. The kid had been idly chewing on the block while working on homework and had somehow swallowed it. Apparently it takes a lot longer for some people to know better than you would think.

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