Saturday, February 18, 2012

Ear's the Thing

Pardon the truly awful pun in this post title, but my plan for today did not include a trip to the doctor's office for a failed attempt at removing a foreign object from a child's ear canal. A FAILED attempt, mind you.

I double checked my To Do list, and that wasn't on it.

Jeff had Sam on his lap this morning and happened to notice something red in Sam's ear. He got out the flashlight and determined that whatever was in there didn't belong in there.

It took me one glance to know that it was a piece of a foam sticker that we had used to decorate our Valentine's treat bags on Tuesday. I remembered that the boys had taken the large stickers and put them on their ears. I immediately told them not to put anything in their ears ever or we might have to go to the doctor to remove it. I even checked to make sure everyone's ears were clear.

Either I missed the sticker in Sam's ear then, or he didn't listen to me and stuffed it in later.

Seriously, dude? Ironic that you didn't listen to me and now you've got something stuck in your ear, isn't it?

Anyway... Five days, and Sam hadn't complained about it, but that puppy needed to come out. We tried to wash it out, but no luck. So, off to the doctor's office we went.

We optimistically took everyone, hoping we could breeze in and out and get on with the day. How naive are we? Not only was the doctor unable to remove the sticker, when he tried to wash it out Sam started to squirm and it went the wrong way. So it's now resting on the ear drum. 

To make matters worse, Isaac and Alex started having sympathetic ear pain while we were in the doctor's office, and started crying to have their ears checked. 

Really guys? Because it looks like Sam's having so much fun?

Alex was in such complete meltdown that I picked him and Isaac up and carried them out to the van. (That's 65 pounds of meltdown and tears these days!)

The doc told Jeff that if the sticker doesn't come out this weekend, we'll have to bring Sam back Monday so they can refer him to the ENT where they will knock him out and remove it.

Because that sounds so simple, right?

Amelia, AKA Florence Nightingale, was right beside Sam the whole time, comforting him and watching the doc's technique. After naptime she suggested we just knock Sam out and get the sticker out of there.   

If only it were that easy!

We flooded that ear with water tonight at bath time, and I added a little warm oil before nap and bedtime. So here's hoping there's a little Valentine's decoration on Sam's pillow tomorrow morning.

On the plus side, when I Googled "removal of foreign objects from child's ear canal" I found this blog post. It's a collection of the best of hundreds of comments Single Dad Laughing got on his blog post about his son stuffing a pistachio up his nose. I guarantee it will make you laugh.

And, Sam's situation makes Alex's sticker on the testicles episode look like a cakewalk. At least that didn't require a trip to the doctor's office!

© Trippin' Mama 2012

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness.... Poor Sam, poor Mom and Dad! Reminds me of another story I read recently - http://www.alittlepregnant.com/ scroll down to the 12?19 entry, Farmer Boy. Hilarious.
Andrea

Aunt Mary said...

Remember when Josh put the rock in his ear? He had the removal plan in place- you may want to give it a try- he said you just put duct tape on a Q tip a put it in and the rock will stick to the duct tape! I washed it out with water didn't have to use the duct tape on a Q tip but you may! Good Luck....