Our Annual Trip to the ER

Last night was our annual trip to the ER.  The lucky winner, Baby James.  Happily for him, it turns out that there was absolutely nothing at all wrong with him.  Sadly for us, it still was a night of stress and terror, not to mention the baby with nothing wrong was subjected to lots and lots of radiation, but hey - he is ok, right?

It all started like a normal evening.  I picked up my CSA and ran home and starting cooking up a storm.  I was going to make a ton of stuff so we would have it on-hand for the whole week, while Joel Husband was in Canada.  This was going to be great.  Joel Husband came home, brought the boys up to the man room like usual, and I got stuff done, cooked, cleaned up, got things ready for the next day.  Finally I went upstairs to get the boys for dinner, and found the Joel's watching a Britney Spears video. Awesome.  James, however, had a cucumber in one hand and a battery cover in the other.  Strange, I thought.  I picked up Baby James and handed the battery cover to Daddy, and went downstairs.

Five minutes later, Daddy appears and exclaims that James took the battery cover off one of his devices, and a battery is missing.  A small, less than dime-sized button battery.  Um, ok.  Joel Husband goes back upstairs to frantically look and Mommy in shock continues to feed children dinner.  James eats like a champ.  Note to self: Ravioli and dip dip carrot sauce is really a hit around here.  Anyway, I call the Dr office, but I know this is pointless.  Our annual ER visit is upon us.  Finally, after 10 more minutes I say to Joel Husband it is his turn to go to the ER and he must go now.  As he is getting in the car the Dr office calls and says with passion: "you need to go now."  Alright, ok, we are going.

Joel Husband goes with James and leaves me at home with Joel Andrew.  I am still in the annoyed stage at this point, this ruined my dinner.  I guess no more wine for me tonight.  He is supposed to get a bath.  Wahh Wahh.  Then I go into the inquisitive stage.  And I google "Toddler swallows a button battery."  Pretty much DO NOT google this.  Or anything for that matter.  What came up was horrifying and terrible.  News story after news story of less than 2 year olds who cannot speak because within an hour the battery eroded their esophagus.  Others died from it becoming caught on the way down, others from exposure to the chemicals in lithium batteries.  Within hours death happens, and is unavoidable.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I quickly went from annoyed stage to full on Mommy panic mode.  I called my mother who yelled at me to keep it together for my other child in the room.  I was a mess.

Then, I called my mother in law and I used the Roger card.  Well, sort of.  We tend to borrow the Roger card but have not actually used it yet - we are saving it for an extreme emergency like imminent death, which I hope we will never have to use.  But, Roger is a friend of the family who works at a local and very awesome hospital and knows many physicians in the area.  This is a generalization and many of my readers are actually related to him so I think explanation is not necessary.  Anyway, my mother in law got on the phone to Roger and asked him immediately if what I was reading online was true, and of course - ever the patient man, he informed us it was a gross exaggeration.  Choking is the only concern for us at this point, and the fact that the kid wolfed down dinner after the suspected ingestion leads us to believe he is fine. We are very lucky to have this man as a friend.

Anywho, Joel Husband is there and the ER, which normally makes us wait forever - must have also read those articles from google, as they put him within the hour into an x-ray.  No sign of metal.  Joel Andrew and I looked and looked and could not find the battery, so they put James in the x-ray again.  You must be wondering why this topic has all sorts of photos of Joel Andrew eating ice cream?  This is because while Mommy was freaking out, Joel Andrew told me: "James will be ok Mommy."  And, then, suggested we get ice cream.  I kid you not.  So, how can you not get ice cream?

James in his last x-ray, and Mommy and Joel Andrew down the street getting ice cream.  Joel Husband seems lighter by now as he texts that he is not worried, and he is just glad he doesn't have a girl since the man next to him was bringing his 15 year old daughter into the ER because she just found out she was allergic to latex.  All seems better.

2nd x-ray, no issue.  I should note, that like his last ER visit, James is as happy as can be, nothing wrong.  They come home and we put James to bed.  But now - where is the freakin battery?  If he did not ingest it before - we need to find it so he does not ingest it now.  Joel Husband scoured the place, and finally found, it was in the crevice of a toy.

So, that is the story of our 3rd ER visit with the boys.  1 Joel Andrew, 2 James Morris. So far.