Steve picked Carson up at school and headed straight to play basketball. He brought him a snack, which he ate, and threw it up. Carson then tried to drink water and threw it up. Steve thinks he's sick, so they go home. Carson is STILL making excuses, when finally he says "I have to tell the truth. I swallowed a marble." !!
I called the pediatrician and the nurse asked "How old is he?" I said Almost nine, and she said Oh! I wanted to say, oh yes I agree, this phone call should be coming for a two year old. Yes we have to go to the emergency room.
We get there and they take us to a room then finally head back for xrays. The marble showed up clear as a bell without him having to drink any nice contrasting fluid. And yes, it is going to have to be taken out.
By now, Carson is just a mess of nerves. He would vacillate between crying and blaming the art teacher for giving him the marble. Finally he told us he was afraid they would cut him open and he would miss basketball, so we were able to allay that fear. A child life specialist talked to him a couple of times to explain what would happen, including explaining how the IV in the hand would work. She gave him a little doll with a hospital gown and a mini IV. He seemed to settle down more after that.
The guys came in to give him the IV. They first injected lidocane using this cylinder that shot the lidocaine under the skin. But the apparatus they used didn't hurt. And then the IV needle didn't hurt either - just a little stick or pressure. This whole procedure also helped him relax - some.
Time to head to the OR. The child life specialist went with us, and would continue into the OR with him. We were in the waiting room for maybe 30-45 minutes or so, and finally the ENT doc that did the procedure came to talk to us. He had kind of an amused look on his face and started telling us what he did. They intubated him then put a scope down his throat. The doc handed us a picture they took with the scope of the marble in his throat. Turns out it was a flat sided craft marble and that flat side was snugged right up against the side of his throat. The scope had two pincers and they just kept slipping off the marble. So he put a balloon down his throat past the marble, inflated it, and pulled it up, pulling up marble also. Got to the top of the esophagus, where the throat narrowed, and he had to tug on the balloon. The marble disappeared!! Where did it go?! He starts looking for it, and finally realized it had gone up Carson's nose!! So dug it out of there, and all was well.
(an aside - Steve remarked "Is everyone young here??" I swear there wasn't a soul over 40 working there.)
We met him in recovery and stayed there for about 30 minutes. We were sent home with warnings he might be nauseous, might spit up a little blood, and could still have anesthesia in his system the next day, so he could stay home. Sure enough, shortly after we got home he threw up, but just that once. Never spit up any blood. And was up by 7:15 the next day! I did let him stay home ("my throat is scratchy", said in a pitiful voice), though he did go to school with me for about an hour. I volunteer in the classroom Thursday mornings, and didn't want to miss. He took the little IV they gave him and did a show and tell. Everyone was impressed.
So quite an adventure for us! They have wonderful staff at Primary Children's, but even with that, I hope to avoid a return visit.
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