Thursday, December 17, 2009

Vacuum pumps

Emily loves corn, so we have been eating a lot of it recently. Tonight, she got the brilliant idea to stick a piece up her nose. She just giggled as she did it, while I ran over to get it out. I had only sat down for 5 seconds until she had put another piece up her nose. This time, it made more sense to jam it way up there. I am now writing this post after sitting in the ER for 4 hours. I guess one ER visit a year isn't too bad, right?

To make matters worse, they wanted to take her rectal temperature. When I went to take off her diaper, I realized it was dirty... and I didn't bring any extras. It sort of reminded me of this situation when I was unprepared, as well. (If you haven't seen these videos, PLEASE go watch them. You will get a good laugh! The second one is my favorite.) They were out of spare baby diapers, but the nurse got me an adult diaper and cut it down to fit Emily. She then handed me a roll of tape to strap it on with. Stuffing was coming out everywhere. It was a disaster, but hey, it worked for the time being.
Apparently, a girl had been in right before us that had a pompom stuck up her nose, so I didn't feel too bad. Everyone on the staff was quite interested in what was going on and assisted in ideas of how to get it out. They started off having me close one nostril and blowing into her mouth like I was giving her CPR. Emily thought it was hilarious, but it didn't budge the corn at all. Then they tried tweezers. The problem was, since it was corn, it was too soft to grab with varying sizes of tweezers. They ended up using a vacuum pump that goes down the trachea of patients on a ventilator. It made the most awful sound, which didn't comfort Emily after they had already stuck 5 different things up her nose. Finally, after a couple of minutes of sucking, it finally came free. The corn kernel was HUGE! It was at least twice the size of her nostril, which was another reason it was so difficult to get out.

At least we are home now. Unfortunately, Emily is sick, and we have an actual doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. She is really going to hate doctors after all of this. Poor thing. I just hope she is old enough to remember this experience, though.

2 comments:

amy said...

Oh, Miss Liz! Thanks for kick starting my day with a chuckle! Loved the videos from the airport. I had something similar happen to me, except I was shopping in IKEA. Oh, and we've had to remove things from our children's nostrils as well. Nathan stuck peas up his nose, only we didn't realize it until a few days later. Ick!

About Virginia said...

Poor Emily,glad she is doing better!