Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Oh where, oh where has my barrette gone . . .

So, yesterday (as I was writing my previous post) Julia's teacher calls me on my cell phone in the middle of the day.  Now this is usually never a good sign and yesterday proved to be no exception.  I figured she had a bad cough or fever since all 3 of the kids have been fighting off a cold for the past week.  But oh no!!!  It couldn't be that simple.  No . . . what my 5-year-old's teacher let me know was that during naptime Julia had swallowed her hair barrette.  And I knew exactly which one it was.  I remember really insignificant details such as this, I always called it useless knowledge.  On this particular day, though, it was anything but useless.

I immediately called our pediatrician.  She wanted to see her and have x-rays done since the barrette was metal and was pointy.  So, I get on the phone trying to find a someone to babysit my other 2 who were sleeping so innocently.  Thank heavens for my awesome friend Julie who was here within 5 minutes and stayed until my mother-in-law could come over.

After a couple of hours, an exam & x-rays we were headed home with our poop catchers, lots of gloves and tongue depressors (apparently they also work for digging in feces-eewww).  The barrette made it safely down her esophagus and was just sitting there at the top of her tummy.  I could see it plain as day on the x-rays.  Now we just have to wait and pray that it goes through the lower intestine as smoothly as it went through the esophagus.  Oh and did I mention that we have to go through her poop until we find it?  I told Julia that she was going to have to do this part.  She doesn't believe me!!!

Julia was a trooper through the whole thing.  Scott and I did have a serious talk with her about why we don't put things in our mouths that don't belong there.  Hopefully we will all learn a lesson from this incident!!

3 comments:

  1. My kids have put me through a lot of things, awful things, gross things, unpleasant things... but this one tops all! Prayers for sweet Julia to poop that thing out with no internal ouchies!

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  2. I swallowed a nickel at the age of 6 while on vacation. So my dad had to scramble to find an urgent care clinic. I guess you could call me a human piggy bank. :). I hope all goes well with Julia and her barrette. You can tell her that her little mishap is helping me teach Marco and Joaquin why we don't put money, Legos, etc in our mouth. It has created quite a dinner time discussion. This may sound gross, but after you find it, clean it like crazy and KEEP it. Show it to her in ten years and the story will be circulated at family events forever... trust me, I know this - Tosca

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  3. I agree with Tosca--you definitely have to keep it.
    Melissa

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