Urgent Care Adventure

[gduck]

You'd like to think your 7 year old child would remember if they did something like, say, swallow a die. Yup. He was playing with some dice, and I was in the kitchen doing dishes when he runs in, clutching his throat, and crying, "Daddy, I swallowed a dice! I feel it in me!"

So naturally I push down the panic, call the wife while getting both kids in coats and shoes. Hurry them to urgent care with him sobbing the whole way and croaking out how scared he is. I'm trying to reassure him that since he can talk and breathe he's okay, but he's having none of it. I had told my wife to just stay at work, but he started begging for her (and she works about a 60 second drive from the urgent care) so she came over. At that point I take our other boy to the grocery store since we all didn't need to be sitting there.

As I'm picking up a few items I start thinking, you know, those were pretty big dice. It would be really hard to swallow one, and if he did he probably wouldn't be breathing or talking so well. In my initial panic all I could focus on was getting him to the doctor because I had visions of him suddenly turning blue or bleeding in his stomach. By the time I'm heading back home with our youngest I know the second I get home i'm checking the couch cushions. And sure enough, in the cushions I find the missing die.

By the time I tell my wife she's already seen the doctor, fortunately they didn't do an x-ray or anything like that. They basically said since he was breathing and talking fine, and the die was inert, he'd just have to wait to pass it. So as I tell her about what I found she tells me what he said to the doctor when the doctor asked him... "Well I can't remember if I swallowed it or put it in my mouth and spit it out. I think I spit it out, but I didn't see it when I stood up so I thought maybe I swallowed it." Yes, if he had said any of this to me I would have check the couch first thing before taking him anywhere. Oh well, lesson learned, I hope, that we don't shove things in our mouth that aren't food.

So that's how my Friday started, fortunately the rest of the weekend was really good.

[Hockeyfan]

Haha. Hope that wasn't too $. Fun times.

[gduck]

Originally Posted by Hockeyfan

Haha. Hope that wasn't too $. Fun times.

Fortunately looks like the insurance is actually going to cover the whole thing since it's being submitted as an "emergency visit".

[tt3]

I'm glad he's ok, what a ride!

[Mark B.]

Originally Posted by gduck

Fortunately looks like the insurance is actually going to cover the whole thing since it's being submitted as an "emergency visit".

HF was just sniffing around to see if you needed health insurance and then give you the hard sell.

Gduck, glad it worked out OK.

[wolfmanyoda]

Happy endings, gotta love 'em.

[Don-Dad]

Scary and Funny all in one post. Glad everything turned out ok.

[Kwak]

Originally Posted by Don-Dad

Scary and Funny all in one post. Glad everything turned out ok.

+1 I'm glad to hear your kiddo was just having "memory problems."

I've been there myself when Justin swallowed a quarter that got lodged in his esophagus. We had a happy ending too but I wish I could laugh about it. We had to spend the night in the hospital because it happened on Thanksgiving of all days and the ENT had the day off.

[gduck]

Originally Posted by Kwak

+1 I'm glad to hear your kiddo was just having "memory problems."

I've been there myself when Justin swallowed a quarter that got lodged in his esophagus. We had a happy ending too but I wish I could laugh about it. We had to spend the night in the hospital because it happened on Thanksgiving of all days and the ENT had the day off.

Ugh, that would pretty horrible. It's like a double whammy; the actual swallowing of a quarter, and then it happening on a holiday and having to deal with all of that.

[Kwak]

Originally Posted by gduck

Ugh, that would pretty horrible. It's like a double whammy; the actual swallowing of a quarter, and then it happening on a holiday and having to deal with all of that.

We came through it OK. The turkey was bland but we didn't get food poisoning and Justin didn't get a secondary infection while staying there so I'd call it a net zero sum just as your experience was. We were already going to be spending the holiday alone anyway.