The Extraction

Yesterday I took Sam to the ENT so they could remove the foam sticker from his ear canal.

It wasn't pretty.

Sam already suffered through two failed attempts to remove the sticker, so I practically had to sit on him to get him in the car seat and to the doctor's office.

By the time I got him there he was so excited to have alone time with mom he was his usual happy self.

Until the doctor came at him with the metal hook. Then Sam freaked out. I was holding him. The nurse was holding him. Sam was yelling, "No! No! No! Let's go home!"

He would not cooperate.

The doctor, who I am told has a set of twins who are three, said "Is he always like this?"

I gave him a dumbfounded look, then replied: "You mean terrified and upset? No, he just gets like that when someone comes at him with a sharp, scary instrument."

Hello?! Have you done this before? I'm betting most of your three-year-old patients don't lay here cooperatively while you dig in their ears.

Anyhow, the doc decided to use this little vacuum to suck the sticker out. Only problem is that he told Sam it was just going to be noisy and it was just like the vacuum at home. Sam does not like noise (unless he is generating it), as I have documented here, here and here.  and he HATES the vacuum cleaner.

I was shaking my head no, but the doc was not looking at me. So Sam cried harder and held his hands over his ears even tighter.

Eventually the doc left and the nurses took over. They gave Sam a lollipop, took him for a ride on the chair, and blew a glove into a balloon and drew a face on it for him. Once he settled down, the doc came in to try again. It took three of us to hold him down and he kept yelling at us to quit "squishing" him. Of course, we didn't have a choice.

Finally the sticker was out. It had actually adhered to the eardrum. Really? Those foam stickers won't stay stuck on paper for eight hours let alone eight days!

Here's the most expensive foam sticker ever to enter our house. (I hope!)

When we got home Isaac crawled up next to Sam and looked in his ear. Then he said, "Did they take your brains out buddy?"

Fair question under the circumstances.

© Trippin' Mama 2012