Writing the previous post about Graci reminded me of her misadventure with an accidentally swallowed quarter this last fall. Let me begin with a little background knowledge:
Graci is a mouth prodder. Blankets, toys, surprisingly not fingers, sticks, rocks, you name it--the kid puts it in her mouth. She has always been this way. I think it stems from the fact that she never used a binky and thus has been trying to find a replacement ever since. Peter's sister, Allyson, works with special needs children and informed me that if she has the behavior past age three there is really nothing I can do. I eased up from that point and only got on to her when it was something dangerous in her mouth, which actually happened quite often.
The incident with the quarter began this fall. We had just put the girls to bed when we heard them yelling. We went upstairs to find Graci hunched over, vomiting. Weird! She had been perfectly fine not ten minutes before and there she was with this terrified look on her face. I ran downstairs for some towels and when I returned Peter said Graci had been mumbling about how she couldn't find her quarter. It took me a couple seconds before I figured out what she meant. She had put the quarter in her mouth and somehow managed to swallow it. I immediately began fighting conflicting emotions. Shock: Are you KIDDING me? We go over this EVERY DAY! Do not put things in your mouth! Empathy: Poor girl! She is so scared. Fear: How do we get it out? What if she stops breathing? Panic: Where do we go? What do we do?
I of course called Peter's sister, Meredith, who calmed me as she always does by reminding me that Graci is still breathing, but we would infact need to take her to the ER to determine how to get the quarter out if she was not going to be able to vomit it out. I hauled Graci downstairs, put on her coat and boots, and went to the local hospital. Poor thing was just plain woozy and sore. X-rays revealed the quarter stuck just at the base of her neck. The doctor informed us that typically incidents like this are handled at Children's Mercy hospital...in Kansas City. After some more vomiting, a little sleep, and no pain meds, we headed by ambulance to KC. A first for both of us!
Once we arrived I was kind of amused to find out that this was the third or fourth quarter extraction witnessed by the resident that helped us who had only been there a month! We had some more xrays taken, some more vomiting, and found that the quarter had not moved. If it had, they would have sent us home!! Ah! The next step was getting it out. The plan was to drop a balloon down her throat below the quarter, blow up the balloon, and get her to spit the quarter out. (after seeing her post-quarter extraction I learned it also involved some yucky black liquid) They did not use anesthesia as this could cause an even greater risk since she has never had it and we didn't know if she might have a reaction to it. Basically they held her down and got the job done. I was in a waiting room a hallway and a couple sets of doors away and heard her shriek, but it was over rather quickly and thankfully she didn't reswallow the quarter. She was so brave!
We slept in our room until Peter was able to come pick us up the next morning. We went to his parents and they fed us breakfast and patted our backs while we related the scary events. They are experts in the field of childhood emergencies and were kind to not rub in Peter passing on some dangerous curiosity personality traits to Graci.
And as for putting things in her mouth? Graci took about a two week hiatus before resuming her oral fixation activities :)
