She Who Has Ears Let Them Hear
I have to say, I have been very lucky. My 2 kids have both been very healthy and aside from minor scrapes, bumps, bruises, the occasional cold, flu and an eye infection or two there hasn't been any real concerns. I haven't had to take either of them to the emergency room... until today. Now don't worry, it's nothing serious. In fact if it would have been a little later in the day or if it wasn't the weekend I would have just taken her to a clinic.
This morning at about 7am my 6 year old daughter barreled into our room frantically crying. "There's something in my ear, there's something in my ear." She yelled while jumping up on the bed for me to have a look. I asked what it was and she said she didn't know. My first thought was that a bug had crawled in there and that freaked me out a bit too. I dragged her into the bathroom and took a look in some slightly better light. When I pressed her for details she said it was hard. That it must have gotten pushed in when she rolled onto it in the night. I quickly discovered that she was lying so she wouldn't get in trouble I suppose. I went and got a flashlight and grabbed my tweezers. I was hoping I could grab the tip of it that I could see. It was a light coloured object and I was really unsure of what it was. When I gently tried to nudge the tweezers around the object I immediately knew we had a problem. It was hard, it was a rock. She had shoved one of her small polished stones right into her ear canal.
My husband has some issue with waxy build up in his ears and has a small syringe that he uses to flush the wax out. He went and got that and attempted to try and flush the rock out but it was lodged too deeply and it was not going to budge. It only took 2 squirts for him to know that wasn't going to work. So, off to emerg I went.
Thankfully there wasn't many people there at 7:30 on the Saturday of a long weekend. We brought along on of her books she had just gotten from the library and I read to her while we waited. Once we had seen triage and were moved to a second room I continued to read. About 3/4 of the way through the book my daughter said, "This is taking a long time." I replied, "Oh honey, this is nothing yet." The Dr. wasn't too long in seeing her after that. I had, in fact, just finished reading her little book to her when they came in. She took a good look and then went to get her "partner". He questioned my daughter and joked around with her a bit. This did little to alleviate her anxiety and fear but I had told her many times it might hurt a bit but she was going to be just fine. The 2 doctors managed to hold her head in the right position and to hold open her ear canal while one used a pair of what was almost needle nosed pliers and a long thin plastic instrument with a tiny loop on the end. The canal was too blocked to be able to slide it past and pry it out but once they were able to maneuver the stone further out of her ear they could then use it to make sure the stone didn't slide back into place.
I think the hardest part was getting her not to move. She was yelling and bawling with a look of panic on her face and as soon as it was out she wanted to jump up and head out the door. The doctor had a bit of a time getting her to sits so she could check the ear out again. There was a little bleeding but the ear drum is totally fine. She shouldn't swim for a day or so and if there is some pain in a few days we should check with our doctor but everything appears perfectly fine... thankfully.
I told her how lucky she was that she didn't hurt herself worse or ruin her hearing. It seems that a valuable lesson has been learned her though and it is hopefully one that will have been learned by her brother as well so we don't have these same issues with him.
I know it's pretty common for kids to do this type of thing although I don't remember ever doing it myself and my husband doesn't think he did either. Have you or one of your kids gotten anything stuck in their ear of nose?
This morning at about 7am my 6 year old daughter barreled into our room frantically crying. "There's something in my ear, there's something in my ear." She yelled while jumping up on the bed for me to have a look. I asked what it was and she said she didn't know. My first thought was that a bug had crawled in there and that freaked me out a bit too. I dragged her into the bathroom and took a look in some slightly better light. When I pressed her for details she said it was hard. That it must have gotten pushed in when she rolled onto it in the night. I quickly discovered that she was lying so she wouldn't get in trouble I suppose. I went and got a flashlight and grabbed my tweezers. I was hoping I could grab the tip of it that I could see. It was a light coloured object and I was really unsure of what it was. When I gently tried to nudge the tweezers around the object I immediately knew we had a problem. It was hard, it was a rock. She had shoved one of her small polished stones right into her ear canal.
My husband has some issue with waxy build up in his ears and has a small syringe that he uses to flush the wax out. He went and got that and attempted to try and flush the rock out but it was lodged too deeply and it was not going to budge. It only took 2 squirts for him to know that wasn't going to work. So, off to emerg I went.
Thankfully there wasn't many people there at 7:30 on the Saturday of a long weekend. We brought along on of her books she had just gotten from the library and I read to her while we waited. Once we had seen triage and were moved to a second room I continued to read. About 3/4 of the way through the book my daughter said, "This is taking a long time." I replied, "Oh honey, this is nothing yet." The Dr. wasn't too long in seeing her after that. I had, in fact, just finished reading her little book to her when they came in. She took a good look and then went to get her "partner". He questioned my daughter and joked around with her a bit. This did little to alleviate her anxiety and fear but I had told her many times it might hurt a bit but she was going to be just fine. The 2 doctors managed to hold her head in the right position and to hold open her ear canal while one used a pair of what was almost needle nosed pliers and a long thin plastic instrument with a tiny loop on the end. The canal was too blocked to be able to slide it past and pry it out but once they were able to maneuver the stone further out of her ear they could then use it to make sure the stone didn't slide back into place.
I think the hardest part was getting her not to move. She was yelling and bawling with a look of panic on her face and as soon as it was out she wanted to jump up and head out the door. The doctor had a bit of a time getting her to sits so she could check the ear out again. There was a little bleeding but the ear drum is totally fine. She shouldn't swim for a day or so and if there is some pain in a few days we should check with our doctor but everything appears perfectly fine... thankfully.
I told her how lucky she was that she didn't hurt herself worse or ruin her hearing. It seems that a valuable lesson has been learned her though and it is hopefully one that will have been learned by her brother as well so we don't have these same issues with him.
I know it's pretty common for kids to do this type of thing although I don't remember ever doing it myself and my husband doesn't think he did either. Have you or one of your kids gotten anything stuck in their ear of nose?
I totally shoved an eraser up my nose in grade 1.
ReplyDeleteI was terrified of getting in trouble. I got it out on my own.