Saturday, November 22, 2008

Little Things

It's amazing sometimes how small things can lead to big problems.  
Take, for instance, a small hairline fissure within a cement dam leading to a massive flooding.  Or the smallest, tiniest virus multiplying and dominating one's body during flu season.  Or say, a tiny, dime-sized smiley face sticker leading us to a crazy afternoon spent in an ENT office.  

Yep, you got it.  My little guy stuck it up his nose.

We were all having such fun--I had just initiated a geography project of sorts.  The two oldest boys and I had hung a map in our kitchen, planning to track the world travels of my parents-- "Where in the world are Gramz and Pappy?"  At each stop, we planned to place a small sticker to show their location and learn a little about the places they are visiting.  Each boy had a sticker to initiate the project.  Cute, simple, fun.

No sooner had I heard his whimper than I knew what had happened.  My two-year-old has a propensity for "trying out" things in his nose and ears... only to have this one "stick".  A sticker up his nose.  Lord, help me!!   In retrospect, it is a pretty funny scenario, but you know how situations like these go--I totally panicked and the rest of the afternoon followed suit.

We spent the first part in our bathroom, me with every cosmetic item known to man in an effort to retrieve the folded up, lodged sticker.  I started with a Q-tip, then tweezers, then saline and bulb syringe.  At one point it seemed that victory was in sight (after some successful attempts at getting the little guy to blow out of his nose--no small feat for such a youngster!)  Alas, we lost sight of the sticker (even with flashlight) and off we went to make a call to the doc.

Which led to the call to the ENT.  Which led to the mad dash to the ENT's office.  Which led to me and three children waiting (and waiting) to be seen.  Which led to antsy children in the examination room.  Which led to...

Nothing.
The sticker was nowhere to be found, which means one of two things:
1) He eventually swallowed it.
2) It is still stuck in the upper recesses of his nasal canal, waiting to make it's presence known.
Yuck!!

Let's just say, we're hoping for #1...
By chance if you should happen to face a similar scenario in the future, here's a quick tip we learned--bring out the pepper and get that child to sneeze!  

Cheers today to the little things; the good ones that make life interesting. ;)

4 comments:

Right Said Red said...

Hysterical. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Argh. If (ha ha, "if") it happens again, you could also pinch the non-blocked nostril shut and clamp your mouth over the patient's mouth, and, remembering how much you love your child, blow hard. In theory, the obstruction should go shooting out the other nostril.

Mary Alice said...

Okay, so I have never had anything like this happen, does this sort of thing *have* to get out of there somehow? Is there risk for infection? Should I run to the pediatrician if my kids shoves something up his nose?

B-Mama said...

Technically something left up there will be "rejected" by the body = infection. According to the ENT, most items (unless really large) travel the usual way out of the nasal cavity down through the throat.

I would say a call to the doc is always your best bet if the object is small enough. Our ped. apparently has a retrieval tool for objects still within sight. Since the sticker was out of sight by the time I called, we had to head to the specialist!