Anybody got a quarter??

Samantha Does! It's North Dakota for you collectors out there and it took 6 hours, 2 hospitals,1 ambulance, 2 EMT's,  1 anesthesiologist, 4 nurses and one ear, nose& throat Doc to help her recover it.  

It all started yesterday afternoon about 4:30pm.  I had cut up an apple for her about 4 and she would run up to the kitchen & eat a slice, run downstairs and watch scooby Doo, run up to the kitchen & eat a slice, run downstairs & watch Scooby Doo.  You get the idea...   I'm in the kitchen fixing dinner.  Mark got home and pretty soon he brings a coughing, gagging Samantha up to the kitchen saying "something's wrong with Samantha".  We kept asking what was wrong as she stood over the trash can coughing & gagging up little bits of apple and clutching her throat.  She wouldn't answer for several minutes and finally said "It feels like something is in there like a bone".  I asked "what is it? Apple?  did you swallow a big piece of apple?" She wouldn't respond to my question, only gag and cough more.  Mark & I kept asking did she know what it was, was it the apple or something else, we needed to know to help her.  Finally she looked at me with very worried eyes and whispered, "It's a quarter".  We loaded her up in the van, told Carly to watch dinner in the oven and the kids and we were going to the ER.  Samantha kept spitting up copious amounts of saliva so we grabbed a little bowl and got going.

When we arrived they immediately x-rayed her and pretty soon we could see a big white circle sitting at the base of her throat on the x-ray.  She could barely talk but she was breathing.  They said it had gone down her esophagus and was stuck.  They decided they weren't capable of retrieving it there and told us we would be transferred to a bigger hospital in Provo.  We would have to go by ambulance as there was the possibility that she could cough or vomit the quarter up and aspirate the vomit into her lungs or the quarter could become lodged in her trachea, shutting off her airway and creating a real emergency situation.  Mark went home at my urging to check on the other kids as we'd have to wait a while.  They estimated we'd get in at the other hospital about 6:30.  An ambulance came around 6pm.  I called Mark and said we're heading over.   2 kind, friendly EMT's loaded our little girl up on their ambulance bed and began to take her out when the phone rang and "same day surgery" didn't want her sitting in their department waiting for the procedure.  I guess they felt it was too much liability and they weren't capable of handling it. So back she went to her ER bed and the ambulance left. I called Mark to tell him and he was almost to the other hospital.  He turned around and went back home.  About that time Jacob called me on my cell phone.  "Mom??? how is Samantha? I just got home & Carly told me what happened."  He'd been at his friend's house since around 1 or 2 and I had kind of forgotten him.  (Sorry Amy!) I assured him she was OK and Samantha smiled when I told her Jacob called to check on her.  

 Now we were to wait in the ER til they were ready for her. During this time Samantha had calmed down quite a bit and just laid in the bed very very still and quietly.  She was coughing and gagging so much the 1st hour but now she looked so tired and just kept drooling.  They gave us one of those little pink kidney shaped bowls and a box of tissue and she'd drool into that & I'd wipe her mouth and sing to her.  We are learning "Called to Serve" in primary this month and I've been trying to memorize that so I was singing that softly to her and her toes started bouncing in time to the rhythm.   I liked seeing that as she was so still and solemn otherwise.  She kept whispering "again" when I'd finish so we sang it alot.  She started to fall asleep once but I think it was too uncomfortable when her head would loll she's wake right up.  She seemed most comfortable sitting with her head bent slightly forward.   The ER nurses and personnel tried talking to her and she would just stare back or answer them w/a thumb's up or a thumb's down.  She got a lot of annoying "eating a quarter" jokes/comments.  I mean the first one was funny but after that it got old real fast.  What was that you used to say Dad? Once is funny, Twice is ................? I don't remember

About 6:30 she was given a color book and crayons and she liked that.  We colored together.  About 7ish they called and said we would be transferred to Pediatrics to wait for the procedure.  The ambulance came again, same 2 nice guys, loaded Samantha up and off we went.  I got to ride in the back with her.  She thought it was kind of cool.  I waited until we were moving this time to call Mark.  He met us at the hospital.  When we got there, she was put into a room where they checked all the paperwork, we signed away our lives for the dang quarter and after checking all her vitals and asking all the right questions, we were off to the "same day surgery" dept.  We went to the surgery room, met the anesthesiologist and the Dr. They explained how they would put her to sleep, intubate her to protect against aspiration and then send a scope down her throat that would be able to see the quarter with a little camera and retrieve it.  They didn't expect it to take very long or to be very dangerous.  The insertion of the IV was quite traumatic for Samantha.  She was very scared and squeezing the Anesthesiologist's finger so hard that he had to do it again.  We got her to relax and the 2nd attempt went much better.  

They put a cute little hair net on her and we kissed her goodbye.  We left to wait in the waiting room.  The Dr. Came in what seemed like 10 minutes to tell us all had gone well.  He handed us a specimen jar w/the quarter and said "Looks like it was North Dakota, South Dakota, one of the Dakota's!"  He said the nurses would observe her in post-op as she woke up which should take 20-30 minutes and then they'd come get us.  

It seemed to take a really long time and so we called over to the nurse's station and they said she was  having a hard time waking up but was OK.  Finally they wheeled her to see us and we went back to the room on the pediatric floor so they could observe her for a while.  Now it was about 9:30.  The first thing she said to us was "I can breathe now!"  and "it feels like it's still in there except I can talk and breathe now".  She asked for her color book and resumed coloring and was cheery and smiling.

  About 10pm the Nurse gave her some apple juice to make sure she could swallow and keep it down.  She sucked it down greedily.  She was very thirsty. About 10:30 when they decided she's swallowed enough and kept it down long enough they said we could go.  Again with the IV, it seemed as traumatic removing it as it was going in.  It was painful for her and she covered her eyes and looked away, crying as the nurse removed the tape and tube.  I think the tape was one of the worst parts so I asked the nurse to wrap it with the purple coban (a.k.a. vetwrap) over the gauze instead of a sticky bandaid that we'd just have to rip off tomorrow.  She did.

Then it was time to get dressed ..........

And Go home!!!!!

Home by 11pm... Asleep by 11:30....Long day!