Those are the words that I typed into Google last night. I should have known it would happen sometime. It's actually quite amazing that we made it through one whole child's toddlerhood without needing to do such a search on the internet.
Sariah ate the cap to a glowstick the other night. Well, I'm not sure that ate is the right word. She inhaled it. And it didn't go down smoothly. She gagged, choked, and coughed it down. But it was too late to intervene. It wasn't gonna come back up, that was for sure.
We didn't worry about it. We figured it would come out eventually.
But early the next morning she woke up coughing the most bizarre cough we'd ever heard. It was kind of a wheeze, kind of a gasp, kind of a burp, kind of a bark. It went on for a few minutes, and then she stopped and went back to sleep like nothing had happened.
James was the first to wonder if it had anything to do with her, um, "dessert" of the evening prior.
But she seemed fine, so we didn't worry about. Though she did walk around quite frequently that day coughing and sticking her hand down her throat to gag herself. (But that's not entirely unusual for Sariah--she sometimes likes to gag herself just for the fun of it. I'm not kidding.)
Then, last night, she did it again. The whole weird cough thing. I went downstairs and googled everything I could find on the topic of "children swallowing foreign objects", which brought up a plethora of websites which listed all sorts of wonderful things that could happen as a result of swallowing a foreign object, as well as all sorts of memorable procedures that could be used to get the foreign object out of the child. And so naturally, I got freaked out. I brought her into bed with us because I wanted to be able to hear her in the night. Of course she slept like a log (which is pretty rare in and of itself).
So this morning I spent several hours at the doctor. Hours which I didn't really have to spend.
I do have to put in a plug for our doctor. Well, actually he's the doctor's assistant. Our doctor is really wonderful too. But his assistant-- I've never met a doctor with such an incredible bedside manner! He can take the more traumatized child and make an examination feel like the most wonderful thing to ever happen to them. (OK, so that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea...) He gets this soft, sweet, sing-song-y, soothing voice that literally melts your ears. Sariah actually let him stick his tongue depressor down her throat and didn't even gag! And when he was done, he said, in his lilting, gentle voice, "Oh, you were so good! And you have such a nice throat!"
That just cracked me up! "You have such a nice throat!"
But then they sent her for X-rays. I didn't think X-rays would be a terribly big deal. But they stuffed her in this tube, with her legs fitting down through these slots, and her arms held high above her head, and these plastic things smashing her body straight and still so that they could get a good picture of her chest and neck. Now, that was traumatic! She cried. Alot. And yet, as we turned to leave when it was all done, she looked back at the technician and said in this sweet little voice, "Thank you." Yeah, thank you for just making my life miserable for the past 15 minutes. Thanks a lot.
So after all that....
The X-rays were clear.
Good news, for sure. The doctor said that the little cap probably scraped her throat going down, and that might be what's been bugging her so much. But it's not in her lungs, and it's not in her esophagus.
Kind of an un-dramatic ending to this story, especially after all that build up.
The only downside is that now we still have to figure out how to spend the $2900 still left on our Flexible Spending Card. Yep, we have to find a way to spend almost $3000 on healthcare before the end of December. I had been entertaining the thought that if Sariah did end up having to have some invasive procedure to remove a glow stick cap from her lungs, at least we would be able to spend our FSA money on it. But no dice.
Sariah ate the cap to a glowstick the other night. Well, I'm not sure that ate is the right word. She inhaled it. And it didn't go down smoothly. She gagged, choked, and coughed it down. But it was too late to intervene. It wasn't gonna come back up, that was for sure.
We didn't worry about it. We figured it would come out eventually.
But early the next morning she woke up coughing the most bizarre cough we'd ever heard. It was kind of a wheeze, kind of a gasp, kind of a burp, kind of a bark. It went on for a few minutes, and then she stopped and went back to sleep like nothing had happened.
James was the first to wonder if it had anything to do with her, um, "dessert" of the evening prior.
But she seemed fine, so we didn't worry about. Though she did walk around quite frequently that day coughing and sticking her hand down her throat to gag herself. (But that's not entirely unusual for Sariah--she sometimes likes to gag herself just for the fun of it. I'm not kidding.)
Then, last night, she did it again. The whole weird cough thing. I went downstairs and googled everything I could find on the topic of "children swallowing foreign objects", which brought up a plethora of websites which listed all sorts of wonderful things that could happen as a result of swallowing a foreign object, as well as all sorts of memorable procedures that could be used to get the foreign object out of the child. And so naturally, I got freaked out. I brought her into bed with us because I wanted to be able to hear her in the night. Of course she slept like a log (which is pretty rare in and of itself).
So this morning I spent several hours at the doctor. Hours which I didn't really have to spend.
I do have to put in a plug for our doctor. Well, actually he's the doctor's assistant. Our doctor is really wonderful too. But his assistant-- I've never met a doctor with such an incredible bedside manner! He can take the more traumatized child and make an examination feel like the most wonderful thing to ever happen to them. (OK, so that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea...) He gets this soft, sweet, sing-song-y, soothing voice that literally melts your ears. Sariah actually let him stick his tongue depressor down her throat and didn't even gag! And when he was done, he said, in his lilting, gentle voice, "Oh, you were so good! And you have such a nice throat!"
That just cracked me up! "You have such a nice throat!"
But then they sent her for X-rays. I didn't think X-rays would be a terribly big deal. But they stuffed her in this tube, with her legs fitting down through these slots, and her arms held high above her head, and these plastic things smashing her body straight and still so that they could get a good picture of her chest and neck. Now, that was traumatic! She cried. Alot. And yet, as we turned to leave when it was all done, she looked back at the technician and said in this sweet little voice, "Thank you." Yeah, thank you for just making my life miserable for the past 15 minutes. Thanks a lot.
So after all that....
The X-rays were clear.
Good news, for sure. The doctor said that the little cap probably scraped her throat going down, and that might be what's been bugging her so much. But it's not in her lungs, and it's not in her esophagus.
Kind of an un-dramatic ending to this story, especially after all that build up.
The only downside is that now we still have to figure out how to spend the $2900 still left on our Flexible Spending Card. Yep, we have to find a way to spend almost $3000 on healthcare before the end of December. I had been entertaining the thought that if Sariah did end up having to have some invasive procedure to remove a glow stick cap from her lungs, at least we would be able to spend our FSA money on it. But no dice.
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