Where is Tyler?

Last week was strange.

It was calm.

My father in law and his wife were headed our way, bringing our niece, to celebrate an early Christmas. I had worked fairly hard getting the house ready and was actually ahead of the game (normally I really race to finish at the last minute). I just had a few last minute (but very time consuming) things to do.

Too calm.

It's Thursday afternoon and I'm on the couch, with my laptop, doing some much needed research. (does playing scrabble on Facebook count as research?). I was trying to get it all done before I had to leave to pick up Paige from school. Tyler was playing his usual game of "can I hit the keys before mom can block my hand". About 2 minutes into my game I realized that Tyler had stopped playing his "laptop game".

Where is Tyler?

We have an open floor plan in our house. I can see the entire first floor from where I am sitting. Well, almost all of it.

Where is Tyler?

I put the laptop down, fully expecting Tyler to come charging in to beat me to the keys.

Where is Tyler?

I head off to the only spot that one sneaky toddler could be hiding, behind our love seat (which is not against a wall).

There he was, big yellow Nerf football in hand. Big yellow Nerf football with a huge chunk missing. I did a quick check of the floor. Only crumbs. I grab Tyler and fish the chunk out of his mouth.

Off to go get Paige.

After we are back at home I place the piece back on the football to show Paige. Wait. There is more missing. Nowhere to be found. Since it was only a small piece (smaller than a pencil eraser), I didn't worry. I call hubby and we both proceed to surf the internet to find something to reassure us that his Nerf snack is non toxic.

After an hour of on and off of unsuccessful searching I shoot off an instant message to some of my fellow bloggers and doc bloggers and go back to cleaning for our visitors. When I hear back from a trusted source that I shouldn't be taking this snack fiasco so lightly, I call the doc who tells me to go straight to the ER at the children's hospital. His concern was that the piece could cause a blockage. He said to get an xray and then we could be on our way.

Sound simple?

I thought so too.
We arrived at the hospital (with football) a little after 6pm.

2 hours in the waiting room filled with sick kids. (We sure were happy that we didn't have Paige with us-thank you Grandma).

1 hour back in a room waiting to be seen.

(Doctor finally comes in and proceeds to tell us that Tyler needs xrays on his lungs-not his intestines-because of the risk of aspiration. I tell the doc that Tyler never coughed or choked. I question the xrays because he is satting at 100% and has good bilateral breath sounds. I said that I wanted to leave since the doc agreed with me that the piece was too small to cause a blockage. I finally give in since I realized that I was being doc mom and forgetting that I am really not a doctor. lol)

1 hour waiting to get the results from the xray

(Keep in mind that Tyler has not had dinner. I didn't feed him before we left in case there was a blockage. The hospital told us not to feed him either in case he needed surgery.)

1 more hour to wait for our turn for additional xrays that the doc originally ordered but were not done because the radiologist did not feel we needed them.


1 more hour of waiting for the results of the 2nd set of xrays.

5 minutes listening to the doctor tell us that Tyler was fine.

We spent 6 hours in the ER!!

Thankfully the hospital has a McDonald's on site that is open 24 hours. We all ate and then headed out for our 45 minute trip home, which took well over an hour because of ice.

I got about 3 hours of sleep and then was up getting my house ready for the visitors that would be arriving that day.

I wish I could have trusted my mommy instinct which was telling me to not go to the ER. The piece was so small and if it was going to cause a blockage, there was nothing we could do about it until it happened.

Lesson learned.