$100 and 6.5 hours in the ER and all I got was this lousy BB?

Boy did we have a day today!

Last night, pretty late in the evening, Sam let us know that he'd stuck something in his ear. It was a plastic BB for a pellet gun. (Yeah, loving those teenagers right now) Do you know what size a pellet is? Exactly the size of Sam's ear canal. Mmmhmmm.

We tried flushing it out with water. All we got was Sam screaming and a drenched towel. We tried sealing his ear with gum and a straw to suck it out. No dice. I wanted to try glue on a stick, but the only glue I thought would harden quick enough was hot glue gun glue, and that's just wrong.

We let him sleep, because I wasn't going in at midnight. I called for an appointment first thing this morning, and wouldn't you know, there was NOTHING open. None of the doctors wanted to make an opening, either, they wanted him to go to an ENT so nothing happened to the ear drum if he wiggled.

Finally the nurse talked to our doctor who isn't in clinic on Fridays and he said go to the ER, because he will need to be sedated. (do you think he knows my son?)

Off we went. Even though it is a $100 copay. (gulp)

My doctor met us there and he tried glue on a stick with Sam awake. Not only did it not work, there was NO way it was going to happen with Sam conscious. It was pretty apparent by the way Sam was hiding under the sink from the doctor, but got even more evident from the screaming and bucking while trying to get it out, lol.

The catch............. Sam had to have not eaten in 6 hours before they could put him under. Ugh. 3 more hours in the ER before they can even START. I needed to get my mother in law home, she was being discharged from the hospital after a 9 day stay. They were very kind and let me leave and come back when it was time to sedate him. So I got that taken care of. But we still had time to kill and had to keep Sam away from food.

We got home to get some lunch, making Cody sit outside with him to keep him away from food. But Cody, the one who didn't put his BB's away, didn't obey and brought him in the house where we had to fight him for the piece of ABC gum he stole out of the trash. Then we had to take the dog water dish away from home, hopefully in the nick of time. I decided we needed to kill time at a park. One without a water fountain. So we went to the riverside park. Where he proceeded to fall in the river.

So we went back to the hospital with him soaking wet. LOL

He was not happy to be back at the ER. Not one bit.

Sam is extraordinarily attached to Hope-Anne right now, so she was with us. She got to lay on the bed next to him while they put him out. He did lay down better with her there, but he sure fought that mask. I would too. The anesthesiologist said "Hey Sam, don't worry, this smells like your dad's dirty socks." Helpful, no?

The BB did NOT want to come out. No way no how. They tried the glue on a stick, they tried a couple different kinds of wax removal sticks. They tried suction. They tried a balloon on a stick, but at first it wouldn't go in. Lots of blood. Finally he had to force the balloon thing in and blow it up and the BB came out with much pulling. It would have been traumatic to have Sam awake for that. His ear canal is scratched up pretty badly, but his ear drum is unscathed!

He woke up screaming. Screaming! For 45 minutes. We tried to give him Advil for the ear pain, but he freaked out. He ran across the room and grabbed a garbage bag out of the trash and started scrapping his tongue with it to get rid of the medicine, lol. He finally just passed out from the screaming and was out cold. We slipped the medicine in while he is sleeping and that seemed to help. He didn't wake up until we were driving home.

We have to put ear drops in his ears every 4 hours. He hates ear drops. With a passion. Even when his ears are not hurting. (we do drops to soften his wax) You can see from the picture how well that went over.

And there you have our day. lol

It is also parents night at football tonight, and I am not leaving Sam, so Donnie is going without me. And it is karaoke at church, which we are going to miss. Sam does seem to be feeling better when he is on pain meds, but we still have a risk of infection with that scratch in his canal. I am sure it will heal fine, though.

The doctors instructions on the discharge papers "Never stick anything in your ear smaller than your elbow." Not even kidding, lol.