I don't proofread my posts before I publish them... cause I keep my thoughts au naturale.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Beware of Yugoslavian Coins!

In the summer of 1997, I went to Yugoslavia by myself to visit a friend.  It was a great experience!  I brought some coins back with me as keepsakes.

June 27, 2010:  A few weeks back I had been going through all my foreign coins and did not want to get rid of my coins from Yugoslavia.  I left one on the dresser in my bedroom and kept forgetting to put it away.  A, 4 years old, apparently decided this morning that it was a good idea to swallow said coin.  Out of my two kids, I would have NEVER expected A to be one to do that sort of thing!  She never was one to put random stuff in her mouth, even as a toddler.  So, when I walked in my room, not knowing she was even awake, she was lying on the floor crying.  I asked her what was wrong, she said, "you're going to be mad at me."  I asked again what she did and she told me she swallowed my coin.

I am a pretty calm and laid back person, so I asked her why, she didn't know and we went downstairs.  I just figured it would pass.  But, she kept crying and telling me it hurt, so I called my parents for some wisdom.  They didn't know, so my mom told me to google it (like mother, like daughter!)  I googled it and the first site I found that was reliable said to immediately take them to the doctor.  So, we headed to the ER.  (I woke my husband up to come along and dropped L off at the in-laws.)

An x-ray was taken to determine where the coin was.  The ER doctor consulted and said he would like to get a surgeon's opinion, so made a call to the surgeon.  The surgeon came in on his day off for a consult and decided she needed to have it surgically removed.  It sounded pretty straight forward to me, so I was still calm.  (I had thought it was a Canadian coin at the time, too.)  So, they called in the surgical team, once they all arrived,  they took her into the OR, put her out, stuck a tube down her throat and removed it.  (It was stuck in her esophagus.)



All good!  Time spent at the hospital- 6 hours.  And hopefully a lesson learned to A not to swallow foreign objects... or American ones either!

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