take a child out for a day of fun

Let me tell you about Tuesday the 22nd of March. We woke like any other day. Chris is in school this week so we wake up with him too, which is fun. Chris left for school and Carly and I commenced our morning. You know cartoons, breakfast, shower, bath, etc. etc. At about 915a Carly says "look Mom" and has the tip of a green crayon in her hand. I say "yeah, it broke so it's garbage now. Can you throw it away for me?" She says "yes" and leaves with it. A minute or two later she comes back with her finger up her nose and a worried look on her face and says "Mommy crayon"...I said "uh, oh did you put it up your nose". She said "yeah". So I grab her and sit her on the bathroom counter and look and sure enough there it is up her left nostril. I ask her to blow her nose but she only blows out her mouth and sucks air in her nose. I get the tweezers thinking I can get it, but as I put them in her nose realize I can't do it because the tweezers don't open up enough. So I look on the Internet and decide to call the pediatrician (we are scheduled to go in for her 2 year appointment next week). The nurse who answers laughs when I tell her what Carly has done and says our Dr. can see us at 10:20a. So I jump in the shower and get Carly dressed. We get to the Dr and Carly is fine. I've been taking her to my appointments to get her ready for her upcoming Dr appointment. She lets him look up her nose and listen to her heart and lungs. He says the easiest and quickest and least painful is to go in with a little catheter that has a balloon on it and go behind the crayon, blow up the balloon and pull it all out. So we lay Carly down and try. Nothing. He tries again. Nothing. He tries again. Nothing but bloody snot. He says looks like I pushed it back, he goes in farther and pulls it out. Nothing. So he says, well I really want to get it but it's so slick. So we give Carly a break. She's been screaming, crying and fighting. Yelling Stop it and for Momma...and I'm holding her legs and arms. NOT fun. So the Dr brings in some of the other Dr's and they look up her nose and say maybe blow the balloon a little more. So after a couple minutes we try again. NOTHING. He says I'm going to try once more and then I'm going to be embarrassed. Still nothing. So he apologizes and calls the Ear Nose and Throat clinic/Dr.'s they say to send us right up. Carly has been screaming and fighting so much there are blood vessels around her left eye and face. I'm upset. So we leave to head over to the ENT. I call Chris on the way (because I'm upset) and he meets us there. I didn't even get the paperwork filled out for this new office before the Dr had looked up her nose, said the crayon was now on her right side and he needed to remove it at the hospital under anesthesia. Awesome. So they call the hospital and schedule it. We are to be at the hospital at 2:30p for 4p removal of the crayon. I cried the whole way home and Carly fell asleep...she wore herself out. So, Carly has a little nap at home. I get a hold of Audrey to ask Ben if he will give her a blessing because at this point my baby going to the hospital to be put to sleep to have a tiny piece of crayon removed is freaking me out. So Ben, My Mom and Amy come over. It was a quick blessing. Carly freaked out at Ben putting his hands on her head because she had just been restrained with someone holding her head still. But I'm so glad he did it. So in the meantime. Carly barely ate any breakfast and now can't eat or drink anything until after this "surgery". She keeps asking for juice and it breaks my heart that I can't give her anything. Chris gets home from school and we head up to the hospital. They check Carly's vital signs and ask lots of questions. They gave her a stuffed animal but after about 40 minutes Carly says "go home" and we can't and she still wants her juice. So we have to sit there and entertain her. An hour passes, 2 hours pass. They say it will be 4:30p when they take her back. 4:30p passes and they say the Dr is in another surgery and running late. They have us dress Carly down to her gown. She wants to "get dressed" and "go home". At 5:30p they say the Dr is on his way. We had been given a wagon to pull Carly around in.

I don't know how many hospital staff came and told us the Dr was 5 minutes away and asked us the same questions. It was getting VERY annoying. The anesthesiologist said maybe they would have to put an IV in and breathing tube in case Carly aspirated the crayon. They made it seem like a slim possibility. Finally about 5:30 the Dr is there and we ask if she will have to have an IV. They say yes for safety. So at about 5:35p Carly is being carted in the wagon back to surgery... she didn't realize what was happening just that someone new was pulling her. They said with the gas she would be out in about 3 breaths. Chris's Mom was there and told us when she was asleep. We stood around and waited. About 15 minutes later someone came out and said the crayon was breaking up as the Dr was trying to get it. Finally the Dr. came out with what was left of the crayon and said everything was good. Now they just had to wake Carly up and wheel her to recovery. Where they said we couldn't go because it was an open area to other patients. So about 5 minutes later I can hear Carly crying and screaming for Momma and Daddy. Finally what seemed like 30 minutes a nurse came and said come on Momma she needs you. So we got to go back with her. All she said was "hold you Mom" and cried. It was like there wasn't enough of me to hold her. She still had the IV in and we had to wait so they could monitor her for a while. Then they wheeled us back to her room. Finally they took the stupid IV out (which they said would be done while she was still asleep). After about 15 minutes they said we could get her dressed and go. They had an apple juice ready for her when we got to the room and she drank most of that before we left. It was about 7p when we left the hospital. We got off the elevator and ran into her pediatrician who looked at the crayon (we kept it) and apologized some more. What a day! We stopped for sandwiches and finally got home. Carly ate and drank lots. I think we were in bed by 8:30p. Wiped out.

On another note Audrey had her baby boy today....with in this hour. He is 8 pounds 8 oz. I just got text pictures from Grandma. I have Luke here with us and Carly is now asking to "hold it", Luke says "oh, SAM". What an exciting week this has been.