Kirstie's Foreign Object

On Saturday, July 4th, we drove our family down to Taichung for a week of serving at Sports and English Camp. There are a lot of good things I could say about the week but this blog is about our eventful trips to the doctor after camp ended. We were planning to stay in Taichung another week in order to attend the Taiwan Missionary Fellowship, but we had all struggled with coughs during camp. By the following Monday Kirstie was sounding pretty miserable so we took her to a local doctor. We were quite surprised when the doctor told us that she not only had a minor case of bronchitis, but she also had a foreign object in her ear! He sent us to another clinic to have the object removed.

We drove straight there but there was nowhere to park so I went in with Kirstie and Allen stayed in the car with Katelin. He was double-parked until he saw a policeman giving tickets to all the cars double-parked behind him. Then he had to keep driving around making passes by the clinic to see if we were done.

I held Kirstie while the doctor looked in her ear with a special camera and we saw what looked like a red bead stuck in a bunch of ear wax. Kirstie did very well sitting on my lap while two nurses held her head still and the doctor worked to get the object out. After about twenty minutes I began to lose hope. The doctor seemed perplexed and at a loss, Kirstie was getting more and more frightened, and Allen hadn't come in yet. Finally the doctor had us wait while he saw some other patients and I went out to find Allen who had just parked the car in a 'sort' of parking spot. He ended up taking Kirstie back in while I waited in the car. After another twenty mintues a nurse brought Kirstie out to the car and she was covering her ear and crying, "I am never going there again!" Soon Allen came out to say that they were unsuccessful and we were supposed to put some drops in her ear to try to loosen the object and then come back at 3:00 that afternoon. The only other option was to take her to a hospital and have her sedated to have it removed, but the doctor said this wasn't good for children and so he wanted to try again.

We opted to skip the missionary conference and quickly packed up our dorm room to head home. The next day we went to a hospital where two more doctors saw Kirstie's ear and fear and decided it would be best to sedate her. They didn't seem concerned at all and said it should be a very simple surgery. An appointment was made for early the next morning as she wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand. That night Kirstie fell asleep on her chair during dinner around 6:00. I'm sure she was exhausted from all the trauma and her sickness. We were glad when she woke up at 10:00 for a snack and drink before going back to sleep.

Allen took her to the hospital at 6:30 the next morning. He said she enjoyed putting on a gown and hair cap just like the nurses and her daddy. They put her head on a little round pillow and had a mask for her face to help her breathe in the anesthetic that would make her fall asleep. She fought it but was out in 2 seconds. Then Allen had to leave. He said he couldn't keep from pacing in the waiting room and doesn't envy the families that have to wait during more serious procedures. Ten minutes later he was called back to wait for Kirstie to waken. The doctor showed him the bead about 1/8th of an inch big and a bunch of gunk that had come out with it. Her ear did bleed a little because the bead was stuck to her skin, but the doctor said this wouldn't be a problem. Everything else was fine, no damage to the ear drum.

When Kirstie awoke she felt her ear and asked Allen if the bead was gone. She wanted to be wrapped in the hospital blanket and have Allen hold her until she saw that there were others sleeping in the room who hadn't woken up yet, then she wanted to lay back down and pretend to be asleep. Then she got upset that the little round pillow she had before was gone. Next she got frustrated with her over sized hospital gown and took it off. There she stood in front of Allen wearing only her underwear with the gown at her feet and a mad look on her face until she got cold and decided to put the gown back on. Finally Allen suggested she watch Curious George on his cell phone and she refused until he said he would watch it. Then she curled up on his lap and they finished out her recovery time in peace. Allen found it all very humorous and felt sympathy for Kirstie. We are very proud of how brave she was with everything.

We are very puzzled about how the bead got in Kirstie's ear. She has no memory of putting anything in her ear and even asked us how it got there. I think she would have told us if she had put something in her ear that she couldn't get out. We don't have anything with beads like the one in her ear. The only scenario some of us could think of was that she was playing with little beads that fell on the floor and one bounced in her ear. Maybe she felt something strange and put her finger in her ear which pushed it back farther. Then of course I have cleaned her ears which probably also helped push it back. Whatever the case, the bead had been there a long time. We praise God that nothing serious became of this and are so thankful that the ordeal is over now.