Evan had a runny nose for a couple of weeks. Nothing really serious. His breathing seemed fine, the discharge was clear and sporadic. It was a little odd to me that it only ran out of one side, but I'd had that happen before, so no big deal. Then he got sick. A cough, yellow-greenish nasal discharge from both sides, mild fever. Some Tylenol, over-the-counter kid's cold meds, and no big deal. All of us ended up contracting the little cold, and were doing our best to overcome it. Evan, however seemed to get worse. One Thursday afternoon he was exceptionally whiney and began pulling at his ear. We've not had ear problems at all with either of the boys, but we still weren't going to play around with this. We called the doctor and got an appt. for that afternoon. Evan had a mild ear infection and was prescribed amoxicillin to knock it out. During the visit, I informed the doctor about his odd single-sided drainage for a week or so leading up to the cold and that there was also a bad odor around Evan's face, beginning just before he got really sick. I wondered if it was related to the infection as it was a sort of "phlemish" odor. He decided he'd better take another look up Evan's nose, as that sounded odd. He wasn't sure, but thought "there might be something up his nose". He explained that when someone has a one-sided nasal discharge like that, it usually relates to some sort of obstruction in the nose. He concluded there was "definitely something in there", but wasn't sure what! (How comforting - my kid's shoved something up into his head and we don't know what it is or how we're gonna get it out!) At this point I'm extremely grateful we brought Evan in, and equally thankful for the Doctor's persistence. We moved into a different room with a suction machine, but decided not to use it because we weren't sure what was up there. I held Evan's arms and chest still, while Laura held his head. A nurse climbed onto the exam table with him and held his legs while Nathan observed with great concern, "What are you gonna DO to him?!" Doctor Gonzales shoved his nose back up to his forehead and reached up into his nostril with a pair of six-inch needle nosed pliers and pulled out THE OBSTRUCTION! We almost forgot about Evan as our curiosity got the best of us and we turned our attention to THE OBSTRUCTION! As the doctor wondered aloud as to what it was he held in his hand, Laura and I immediately knew the answer - the sponge tip of an eye-makeup applicator!
Apparently, Evan got a hold of the thing three to four weeks earlier (according to the doc's assessment - due to the fact that tissue was starting to grow onto THE OBSTRUCTION - EEEWWWW!!). He must have been imitating Laura, who often uses Q-tips in her nose, post-sinus surgery. Apparently, the tip stayed up in there when he pulled the stick out, and might still be in there had he not got sick.
The doctor leaned over the nasty little thing and said, "Yep, there's that smell you were smelling!" as he offered me a sniff. "I'll take your word for it, thanks!" I replied, backpedalling. I did ask to keep it - just long enough to take a pic for the blog...
The penny is there just for size comparison - it was not another nose prize!
And, how did this little procedure make you FEEL, Evan?
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