Sunflower Seed Incident

On Sunday evening, Clara decided to get a seed from the bucket of sunflower seeds we had sitting in our laundry room to feed to the birds over the winter and put it up her nose.  After trying to use an infant nasal aspirator to suck it out, we tried getting her to blow it out.  She wasn't getting the concept, so at 8:45 pm, Clara and I headed over to immediate care.  The doctor there was hesitant to even try getting it out, because the inside of her nose was too swollen.  He tried but just didn't want to puncture anything.  He told us we may need to go down to the ER (another 20 minutes south of where we were and by now it's almost 11 pm).  Thankfully, he called the ER before sending us there, and they said they didn't have the right tools to get it out either, that it would be best to follow up with a pediatric ENT in the morning.  The pediatric ENT they recommended was at a location an hour south of where we live.  Thankfully, Hailey had ear tubes put in by more local ENT's (just a different hospital affiliation) when she was 2, so I gave them a call on Monday morning.  We got an appointment at 9:30.  The ENT tried to get it out with a long scissor-like tool and a suction tool, but even though Clara was staying relatively still, she still was getting scared by the feeling and moving her head just a little.  The doctor said putting her under would be a much easier alternative and prevent her from jerking her head and doing more damage.  So, he scheduled an OR procedure for 8 am the next morning.  Meanwhile, we then needed to go and get a pre-op physical done.  Our general practitioner said we could get this done through their walk-in clinic, which is first-come-first-serve, so we waited another hour before being seen to get that done.  This morning, Clara and I left the house at 6:10 am to be there by 6:45.  The procedure took all of 3 minutes and she was off the anesthesia and awake a half hour later.  We left the hospital by 9:15.  The ENT gave me the sunflower seed back in a specimen cup and said, "Here is your very expensive sunflower seed."  Boy is he right!

In her hospital scrubs pre-removal.

The "very expensive sunflower seed".