In retrospect, it seems so obvious.

[rivka]

Michael and Alex have a little morning coffee ritual. He gets the bag of coffee out of the kitchen cupboard and Alex gleefully shouts, "Coffee BEAN!!" Michael gives her a single bean with a warning not to eat it. She sniffs it, savors the odor, and then scoots it around her highchair tray while he grinds the beans for his coffee.

This morning, he had just turned his back to put the beans in the grinder when a little voice announced from the highchair:

"Uh oh. Coffee bean in nose."

Michael got out the flashlight, and indeed, the coffee bean was clearly visible far up inside Alex's right nostril.

He called me downstairs. I took a horrified look with the flashlight and went straight for the phone to call the pediatrician. Then I burst out laughing. "Okay, Michael, now we're REALLY parents."

Alex sneezed several times, pawed at her nose, cried a little. I held her on my lap and explained that the doctor would take the coffee bean out. Michael went off to shower while we waited for a callback from the doctor.

The pediatrician on call explained that there's a little pouch of flesh inside the nose that objects can easily get stuck behind. That causes swelling, which makes the objects harder to remove. The removal process involves decongestant drops to reduce the swelling, followed by long calipers of a sort that they don't carry in their office. She arranged for us to take Alex to the Urgent Care clinic at a semi-suburban hospital - a sort of stepped-down emergency room where a doctor from our own pediatric practice would see us.

I called the usher coordinator at church to tell her I needed an emergency replacement. Hauled Alex upstairs and got myself dressed. Michael emerged from the shower and threw some clothes on. "I'm just going to brush my teeth, and then we can go," I told him.

Alex immediately jumped in with "Come with me? Alex brush teeth." So I brought her into the bathroom with me and put toothpaste on her brush. We brushed our teeth. Then Alex started pawing violently at the outside of her nose again.

"The doctor's going to take the coffee bean - "

tick.

I picked the coffee bean up off the floor.

We called and left a message for the on-call doctor, saying that we weren't coming in. She returned it a few minutes later, and, sounding very pleased, explained that caffeine reduces swelling. (That's why people put wet teabags on puffy eyes.) Her theory is that the caffeine in the coffee bean kept Alex's nose from swelling shut, allowing the bean to be dislodged. "If you're going to get a foreign object in the nose, it's good to have it be a coffee bean! Maybe I should write a paper about this," she said cheerfully.

"Maybe we should stop letting her smell the coffee," I said. Michael and the doctor both agreed.

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. Poor Alex. Poor Michael and Rivka.

I'm glad the coffee bean came out on its own. I suspect that calipers up the nose would be, um, yeah. Not so much of the goodness.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"I suspect that calipers up the nose would be, um, yeah. Not so much of the goodness."

Beats growing a coffee tree in there.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"'Maybe we should stop letting her smell the coffee,' I said. Michael and the doctor both agreed."

Is that too draconian? Isn't the lesson enough?

Oh, wait. She wants to smell the bean. Never mind.

B

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's too easy for vigorous sniffing to result in bean-inhaling. Besides, she's just a young toddler. It's hard to know just how much of the "lesson" she absorbed. This was a much more educational experience for Michael and me than I expect it will be for her.

[(Anonymous)]

On the plus side, there is a standard process for bean removal.

B

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

He called me downstairs. I took a horrified look with the flashlight and went straight for the phone to call the pediatrician. Then I burst out laughing. "Okay, Michael, now we're REALLY parents."

Isn't that the truth? Most of the crazy things that happen seem to be horrible but make you laugh, all at the same time.

Poor lil' girl. But at the same time, that's one funny story.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

LOL - great story.

Liam stuck a pea up his nose fairly recently. Fortunately, it was just inside the opening and easily expelled by pressing higher up.

What *is* it with kids and shoving things up their noses?

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I don't know about noses, but when my four year old brother stuck ballbearings in his ears he explained that it was because he was wearing trousers that had no pockets.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Heeee. That is a great story. I particularly like the doctor's reaction at the end.

Kudos to you both for not panicking!

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the doctor was so proud that she'd figured that out. There was no other real reason for her to call me back. She tacked on a little bit of medical advice at the end (caffeine can also be irritating, so if her nose seems to be bothering her you can flush it with saline), but that was so obviously not the real reason for the call.

"Uh oh. Coffee bean in nose."

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

You have a new .sig line.

Children, Objects, and Orifices

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

My daughter (now 34) inserted an uncooked elbow macaroni into her ear when she was very young. She got an ambulance ride (with siren) out of the deal. :-) We didn't have a car at the time, so we called her father's brother to get a ride to the hospital. "Unca Dick" happened to be at work that evening. That year, he was an ambulance driver. Of course, when his beloved 2-year-old niece requested lights and siren, he complied. :-)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Oh my, we'll be remembering this story for a very long time.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Oh my. Oh dear.

Poor Alex, indeed, and poor you. It's sad to see a morning ritual come to an end, but what a funny story.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

"Oh Mother, we've gone and put beans in our ears
(Beans in our ears, beans in our ears - etc)"

"That's fine, boys, just don't put those beans in your ears
(Beans in your ears, etc)"

[janetmk.livejournal.com]

Heh! Beans in My Ears (http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=8137) popped into my head too despite the orifacial difference.

[geminigirl]

My earworm was "Never Say No" from "The Fantasticks" which is what my Mom would sing when we did silly stuff like that.

I'm glad Alex is okay. And I hope this turns her off sufficiently from putting things that don't belong in orifices, into those orifices.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

There is definitely a paper in this!

It seems too sad to deprive Alex of the only good part of coffee. Maybe you could tie the coffee bean into a mesh bag before letting her smell it.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Or grind it up!

[elynne.livejournal.com]

... and then she'd inhale the ground coffee? Erm, not such a good solution, I think. But putting the bean in a teabag-kinda-thing seems plausible, from where I'm sitting this morning having sad wishful thoughts about coffee.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

Or put several beans into a saltshaker or teaball or other perforated container.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Michael could just hold the bean in his fingers and let her smell it, I suppose.

She seems more on a path to be a tea drinker, ultimately. When I make my tea in the morning, she's right there asking for "Alex's tea too." If I give her a mug and the paper wrapper from my teabag, she will walk happily around the house sipping her "tea" for a good ten minutes.

But smelling the coffee is a special Papa thing.

[melebeth]

Thank you for giving me the giggle of the weekend.

[windypoint.livejournal.com]

My eldest put a polystyrene bead in one of her ears and a small piece of folded up aluminium foil in the other. Then didn't tell us about it and carried the foil and bead around for approximately six months, judged from when we had last purchased confectionary wrapped in blue aluminium foil.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Years ago my friend V went out of town, leaving her husband in charge of the two kids. She called one morning to see how everyone was getting along. I ran into her as she was walking away from the pay phone, shaking her head.

Me: So, how's it going?

V.: Three hundred dollars of quality time and a two hur trip to the emergency room. Who in their right mind tells a four year old holding a dried bean 'Everything I tell you goes in one ear and out the other'!

Me: Uh oh.

V: Yep. He put it in and tried to push it through with a pencil to make it fall out the other side!

Me: That boy's a budding scientist.

V: Stop trying to make me feel better.

[cheshyre]

Heh. Glad to hear your story came out well.

At family gatherings, my grandparents often tell a story of a child in their acquaintance who got a dried pea stuck in his nose. After it was finally extracted, somebody stupidly asked how he got it in there in the first place.

"Like this!"

[lissamc.livejournal.com]

Plastic pony beads fit up the nose nicely, too. Sometimes you can get them out on your own. And sometimes a trip to the ER seems in order. The calipers aren't that bad. (She stopped doing that after the second time, which was the ER trip.)

Oh, and if she ever swallows a handful of pennies, they go through with no ill effects.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

But magnets are bad.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

I am so glad she (and you guys!) are all ok. "Uh-oh. Coffee bean in nose." is still making me giggle though. :)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yep. Succinct, informative, and riveting!

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

He called me downstairs. I took a horrified look with the flashlight and went straight for the phone to call the pediatrician. Then I burst out laughing. "Okay, Michael, now we're REALLY parents."

Yep! :)
(When I was little, not only did I put a pumpkin seed up my nose, I also managed to get the hook of a wire coat hanger stuck under my eyelid. I *remember* that trip to the hospital!)

[fourgates.livejournal.com]

My oldest little brother once put a "red-hot" cinnamon candy up his nose. It burned less than one might guess, and gave him an impressive flow of red snot.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

The ENT who verified that my right eustachian tube is probably swollen shut forever teasing asked me before she looked "Are you sure you didn't put anything in there?" She went on to tell me that at least half the time she looks in ears, it's to get something out.

[lizardling.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Hee. It's good that Alex didn't have to experience the forceps-up-the-orifice.

My brother, when he was a toddler, has had at least two incidents of foreign-object-in-orifice. One was a lego piece -- we've had arguments about exactly which kind of lego shape it was, if you can believe it. I say it was a little flat disc (frequently used for headlights), my sister says it was a 1x2 piece.

The other incident involved a scare related to my hearing aid batteries and a late night rush to my dad's clinic to stick baby brother under the X-ray machine to see if it really was in his guts somewhere. (it wasn't).

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the giggle and the reinforcement that I'm still childfree. Definitely still prefer the children I can give back :)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Thank you for being one of my reminders that there are plenty of perfectly sane, nice, and reasonable childfree folks.

(But come on! How could anyone not be living for the joyous day when they hear "Uh oh, coffee bean in nose"?)