Josie's Pandora's Box

I heard Josie crying in her room, a real sad painful cry.

I ran to help her and saw the Q-tip.

She was holding her right ear and said, "It hurts so bad!"

I asked her why it hurt and she said something was in it.

What? 

She walked me downstairs to the bag of sunflower seeds on the counter.

I quickly deduced that she had put a seed in her ear and then trying to get it out herself with a Q-tip, she had pushed it in further, making it quite painful.

I laid her down in my bathroom with a spotlight and some really long skinny tweezers.  I pushed back her hair and pulled on her ear to see into the canal, and there it was, a sunflower seed (without the shell) wedged tight and deep.  I was able to see clearly enough to put the tweezers around the seed, but it was very painful for Josie and it was hard for her to stay still.  The one good grab I had ended up just scraping off part of the seed. 

I needed help.

A quick call to our pediatrician was made and luckily they advised me to come there.  So much better than the instacare or the ER.

Josie was bawling, so nervous and in so much pain!

He looked in and thought that it was just wax and not a seed at all.  So he got his special loop thingy and went to work while I wrestled the strongest little 4 year old body ever!

After a minute or so and tons of screaming, he pulled out the seed. 

Hallelujah!

Then he peeked in her ear just to make sure everything was ok.

He said, it looks really inflamed, more than it should be.  Let me clean out this wax so I can see better.

Josie had HAD it, no more! 

We had to bring in Nurse Vicki to hold her head.

I was using all of my energy to hold her still and she still moved like crazy.

He finally got out the wax.....

Oh wait, it's not wax either, it's waded up tissue! 

What?

So he wanted to take another look to make sure the ear drum was ok.....

"Um, take a look at this, there is something blue in there!"

What?

Sure enough a blue bead (or part of one anyway), but Josie wasn't having any of this!

We convinced her to try and flush it out with a water pik.

It was a mess, it hurt and she hated it, but at lease she sat still.

I took the little ear tool and peaked in....their it was, a blue bead.

Amazing Dr. Wynn came back in and with some motivational therapy, Josie laid back down and he went to work.

I was a sweaty mess, Josie was going hoarse from screaming so long and loud, but he got it!  

Who knew that a little sunflower seed would be the opening of Josie's "pandora's box."

 

The Dr. threw away the tissue wad before I could slide it into my purse, but it was about the same size as the seed, and was yellow from being in there so long.  Who knew all of that could fit into a little ear canal! CRAZY!

A pretty hard little lesson to learn, but it was definitely learned!