Aaron knew the safety pin was open because Easton had pulled a nametag off Ellie's booster seat that was attached with a small, gold safety pin. The booster was in our hallway after Ellie had a lunch date with Grammy. Easton is crawling ALL OVER the place and he was on one of his usual explorations down the front hallway when Aaron heard him coughing. Daddy went running to check it out and there was Easton, holding this nametag with no safety pin in sight. Aaron did a finger swipe and actually felt the pin at the back of Easton's throat. Easton coughed a bit and Aaron did another finger swipe. Easton spit up a little bit, but then was fine, acting as if nothing was bothering him at all.
I was on my way back from a girls' weekend and was due home anytime. An hour later I was home and Aaron told me the situation (after Ellie told on Daddy). I was actually very calm and made a call to the emergency room, who told me to call the pediatrician, who put me on hold, who paged the nurse, who gasped, who paged the on-call doctor, who called the poison control, who called from Emmanuel! I was told not to worry because kids swallow all kinds of crazy things, but protocol for an open or closed safety pin was to go to emergency for an x-ray.
So off we went and handed Ellie over to Grammy in the parking lot. In the emergency room, we were taken in right away, admitted, and fairly quickly had the x-ray.
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The technician told us the pin was, in fact, open in a "v" shape right in Easton's esophogus. The doctor came in and asked us if we preferred Emmanuel or Dornbecker because Easton would need to be seen by a pediatric gastrointerologist. The safety pin would need to be removed under anesthesia. He got paper work ready to send us to Dornbecker where we already had a room waiting for us.At Dornbecker, we were greeted by the nurses and asked, "Is this the safety pin baby?" The ear, nose and throat resident came to examine Easton, as he continued to put just about everything in sight in his mouth. The resident explained the procedure and how common it is with infants. In fact, the surgeon had already done two similar procedures that day, one to remove a bolt!
So we waited. Through it all, Easton remained so happy and in no pain. He hadn't even eaten since 2pm that afternoon. Aaron and I stayed very calm, a few tears here and there and apologies, too. I felt bad for Aaron, carrying the burden of guilt that it happened on his watch and Aaron felt bad for putting me through this. We decided we were even since Ellie fell a month or so ago from a nine foot play structure on my watch! We knew the Lord would take care of Easton, that these things happen and we didn't do any "what ifs".
At 9:30, we were taken down to the surgery prep room to meet the anesthesiologist and have the procedure explained. Basically, Easton would be under anesthesia, have an IV inserted in his little pudgy foot, put on a ventilator and a rigid metal tube would be inserted in his esophogus. A scope would find the safety pin and a tool would be used to grasp and pull out the safety pin, along with the tube. If needed, there is a tool that can close the safety pin before removing it. The procedure itself should be fairly short, the prep for the surgery was the longest part.
So, we handed Easton off to a nurse and she walked away and I felt so sad. We waited with Aaron's parents and tried to make conversation to make the time pass quickly. About 30 minutes later out came the surgeon. He simply threw a bag at me with a cup inside that held the safety pin and said, "Here ya' go." Off he went and that was that. We laughed, relieved it was over. The resident came out to explain to us how things went and even he was surprised at how casual the surgeon was.
The nurse took us back to see Easton in recovery and my heart just melted. He was just in a diaper, wrapped in warm blankets with such red, sleepy eyes. He was making little gurgling noises, sort of trying to whimper and his voice sounded so hoarse. Aaron and I took turns rocking him, trying to soothe and comfort him. The nurse told us he was doing fine, he was given morphine to curb the pain and Tylenol in his bottom (Aaron thought that was funny). His heart rate was a little excerlated from the medicine, but we went back to the room relatively quickly. They wanted us to try to feed him a bottle to be sure he wouldn't vomit before we took him home. He was just so tired and wouldn't really eat nor sleep, so finally we just asked if we could go home. After removing the IV from his foot and bleeding all over me, we got to go home.
Exhausted, we put Easton to bed and he slept like a trooper. Aaron fell asleep, but I just layed in bed, a thousand things running through my mind. I slept off and on, but very restlessly. Easton roused around 6 am and his poor voice broke my heart. It sounded so raw and sore, it was pitiful. He went back to sleep and I actually had to wake him at 9:15.
The four of us stayed home today, just playing and hanging out. We have been checking EVERY WHERE and reminding ourselves and Ellie that NOTHING can be on the floor or within Easton's reach. He is so curious and fast. I said to Aaron, "Here's to boys, but I have this feeling it could happen again."
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