Pea-Mania

I guess it's been about a month now, but now everyone can see just how much trouble two little peas and a baby can be. Paisley had to be taken to the ER here in Jacksonville because she stuck two dried peas up her nose. One on each side of course. She's like her mommy, things need to be symetrical whenever possible. Stupid mommy, though, has no idea when said peas were put up her nose. She tore the seed bag open one day, but it wasn't until about 2 days later that we realized her nose was bothering her. Anywho...the ER in Jacksonville couldn't get the peas out. No surprise since the ER in Jacksonville sucks. I took a chance though hoping it would be a quick ER visit. So they transfered us to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. We got lucky, it was a short wait. About 20 minutes in the waiting room and then about 30 minutes in the exam room waiting for the ENT. My average ER visit to Children's is about 3-4 hours total. That day was about 2 1/2 hours. Not bad. Our longest ER visit was 12 hours just in the waiting room. Of course that was becuase Lorelei got sick 4th of July weekend and everytime we got to the front of the line we got bumped for yet another ambulance with yet another firecracker injury. Anyway, back to the original story. The ENT got one pea out with his little metal scoopy thingy (yes that is the technical term) but it was a no go for the other pea. Now picture this at the same time. Poor Paisley is wrapped in a sheet like a burrito so she can't move. The worry is that the pea might accidently get pushed to far back and go into her airway. The ENT has this "AHA moment" Yeah, I said it. "AHA moment" what are you gonna do about it, Oprah. NOTHIN'!! He remembers something he read about. He took a sterile catheter (the ones used for little baby boys) and threaded it behind the pea. Then he filled little balloon with saline and pulled the pea out that way. He commented that he wished he remembered that an hour ago when he first started trying.






The penny is there for size reference. The peas on the outside are the dried peas. That is the size the peas were when they went into Paisley's nose. The inside peas are the actual re-hydrated peas that came out of the poor girl's nose.