2 weeks ago this Thurs Tyler came running upstairs with Jack saying "he's choking". So I looked at him for a fraction of a minute and knew he was breathing, but clearly there was something in his throat. We debated calling 911 but since he was breathing, and the ambulance house is right close to the hospital, we decided to run him to the emergency room ourselves. Allan drove and M & I watched him all the way there (less than 10 mins.). When we were in the parking lot getting out, he started coughing up lots of clear mucus-y stuff so Al ran him in and M and I grabbed our stuff and followed. They put him in a room pretty quick and took an x-ray. Guess what was in there???
Can you tell what it is?? Yep, it's a quarter. Look at it from the side (it's a real faint up and down line in front of his spine):
That's why he didn't choke to death and could still breathe.
So the doctor decided to send us down to St. Louis Children's Hospital to be checked out and have surgery to remove the quarter since he couldn't swallow it down and he couldn't throw it up. Lovely. He was pretty pathetic, real sad looking and quiet. Just wanting to be held. After we'd been there about 2 hours the dr. came back to tell us the ambulance was there to take us to Children's and asked "how's he doing?". We had literally just remarked that he suddenly perked up, and was talking, and seemed more like himself. So the dr. says "hmmmmm, let's take another x-ray before we send you down there". Guess what?? No quarter!
He managed to swallow it! Yay! So surgery! The guys that showed up with the ambulance (hi Andrew and Kevin!) waited so patiently for the xray results, chatting with us and entertaining Jack. They even took Jack on a little tour of the "bus" because he wouldn't ge to ride in it. He loved seeing the lights on top (he's into lights lately so that has super special). Then we went back in, spoke to the dr. who told us to watch for the quarter (ewwww) and that it could take up to 2 weeks to see it again. We've been waiting, waiting, waiting ever since. But guess what happened last night? We have quarter! (the black one on the right is Jack's, the other one I pulled out of my wallet for comparison. Can you believe the color change? Interesting.
So all is good, and now you know what happens to a quarter after going through the digestive tract of a little boy for 2 weeks. I was glad it came out - all the jokes about where the soda comes out or where does the change come out were getting repetitive!
1 comment:
All boy, that one. :o) Glad he decided to make the change. ha!
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