Like trying to find a needle in a...

...baby? That's what the last two and half days were like for us. Here's the story.

On Wednesday evening I was finishing up a sewing project in the tv room while Jeff was working on dinner. Daniel had been happily crawling between the kitchen and tv room and playing around. At about 7:30 he was playing on the floor in the tv room with one of the remote controls. He then turned around, pulled himself up on the coffee table, reached over to my pincushion, pulled out a pin (you know, the kind with the little plastic ball on the end) and popped it in his mouth. I saw this out of the corner of my eye and when I looked at him I saw the pointy end sticking out of his mouth. I jumped off the couch and practically dove over the coffee table (giving myself an enormous bruise on the side of left knee) and tried to get the pin out of Daniel's mouth. Well, of course, he hates it when we try to get anything out of his mouth, so he stared pushing my hands away and crying. I yelled for Jeff, and he came running in. He tried to get Daniel's mouth open while I tried to hold his arms down. At this point Daniel was crying and trying to wiggle free. Jeff got his mouth open once and he saw the pin in there, but then Daniel wiggled out of my grip and clamped his mouth shut, and when Jeff got his mouth open again, the pin was gone.

I immediately ran for the phone and called 911. The responder was mostly worried about Daniel choking on the pin, and when she heard him crying in the background she said that's good and just to make sure he keeps breathing. She sent the Bay City emergency crew and an ambulance from Tillamook General Hospital. The Bay City crew was a bunch of old guys in sweatpants who really had no idea what to do, but at least they parked their truck in our driveway with the lights flashing so the ambulance could find us easier. The paramedics were there within about 15 minutes and they were also worried about Daniel choking on the pin, so told us they'd take him to the hospital. At this point Daniel had calmed down and didn't seem to be in any pain and was mostly interested in all the people around him and all the lights flashing. I quickly packed the diaper bag, and Daniel and I got in the ambulance while Jeff followed in the car. Daniel was totally calm in the ambulance and even played with a little stuffed animal the paramedic gave him. I was a mess though. I was fighting back tears, and sending up silent prayers the whole way. They didn't do anything in the ambulance except check his vitals, which they did again as soon as we got the emergency room.

About 20 minutes later (which felt like forever) they took him in for an x-ray and saw that the pin was already down into his stomach. We waited some more, and eventually the doctor came in said that we would have to go to Dornbechers in Portland, where they have a pediatric gastroenterologist. He said there would be no need for life-flight or an ambulance and that we could just drive him. So we left Tillamook at about 9:15 PM, in pouring down rain, without a single bite of dinner in our stomachs, and with Daniel sleeping peacefully in his carseat. After making a few phone calls to let some people know what had happened, and praying the most intense, pleading prayer of my life, we spent the rest of the ride in silence. I was just replaying the scene of seeing my baby with a pin sticking out of his mouth over and over. I was also feeling a huge amount of guilt for having been careless enough to let this happen.

We found our way to Dornbecher, which is part of the OHSU campus up on the hill, by about 10:30 and went straight to the emergency room. Daniel woke up when we got him out of the car and was in a good mood, smiling at all the nurses who were cooing over him. After a 20 minute wait in the waiting room, they took us back to a triage room and got another x-ray of him pretty quickly.

And then we waited. For about 2 hours people were in and out of room, checking his vitals, getting our information and keeping us updated on what the gastroenterologist was saying about our situation. Daniel was as active as ever, acting completely normal and crawling and climbing all over the place (hard for Jeff and I to keep up since we were sooooo tired). The doctor was at home and came back into work just for us. We finally met him at about 1:00 AM. At this point all three of us were exhausted. Daniel was getting cranky because he was so hungry, but they wouldn't let him eat because they didn't want anything pushing the pin along. Once the Dr. got there things moved a bit more quickly. He talked us through all of the options for getting the pin out. His first course of action would be an endoscopy (putting a tube with a little camara and tweezers down his throat and pulling the pin out). He said that if the pin was still in his stomach, then it was highly likely that he could get it out with no complications. Even though Daniel had had 4 x-rays up to this point, they couldn't get an accurate enough picture of exactly where the pin was. It was either in the bottom of the stomach or it had already entered the small intestine. If it had already entered they small intestine then they would not be able to retrieve it, and we would have to wait for Daniel to pass it.

So at 2:00 AM we took Daniel up the operating room, met the anesthesiologist, they explained the procedure, and then Jeff and I had to leave. Again, I cried. I didn't want to leave my baby alone with a bunch of strangers who were going to put things down his throat. But we had to. And so we waited, again. 30 minutes later the Dr. came out and said that they were unable to retrieve it because the pin had passed into his small intestine. The good news, he said, was that they were able to see his esophogus, stomach and the opening to his intestines and there no scratches or anything, so the pin had passed without any damage so far. But now we would have to wait for it to pass on it's own. He explained that in most cases, this would not be a problem, but a 9-month-old with a 3 cm pin was not most cases. He said the "rules" for passing sharp foreign objects in a body are mostly written for kids, not infants, so he wanted to keep us at the hospital until it passed. He was mostly worried about one particular section of the intestines, where the small intestine meets the large. There is a very narrow opening and a higher likelyhood for puncture there than anywhere else. If there were to be a puncture, they would have to do an immediate surgery. Scary. I think the doctor sensed that I was feeling bad about the whole situation because he told us quite a few stories about other cases he seen and the crazy things kids had put in their mouths. Lots of the nurses had stories to tell too, which did help me feel a little bit better.

At 3 AM Daniel had woken up from the anesthesia and we got to seem him. They took us up to the general hospital and gave us a room. He was hooked up to an IV, they checked his vitals again, got us situated, and finally, around 4:30, all three of went to sleep (Jeff and I on a twin bed, Daniel in a crib). But we were up by 7:30. They did 3 more x-rays throughout the day just to check on the progress of the pin. Daniel slept most of the day because he was exhausted from all the action of the night before and because he had an empty stomach. When he was awake he was pretty lethargic, but happy. He didn't seem to be in any pain. We had many calls and emails throughout the day from concerned and supportive friends and family. We got a couple of meals from one of the cafes in the hospital which had really good food, and a friend of a friend brought us dinner that night. After every x-ray it took about 2-3 hours for us to get any word on the progress of the needle and every time they said it was still moving, but it hadn't exited the small intestine yet. We had really hoped to be leaving the hospital by Thursday evening, but it soon became clear that we would staying another night. The hospital had been very accomodating and had given Jeff and I toothbrushes, soap, shampoo and towels, but we were both in the same clothes we had been wearing since Wednesday morning, so I took a little trip down to Fred Meyer to buy some new socks and underwear. The hospital gave us some cotton pants to sleep in and after a nice shower and some clean clothes we both felt alot better. The whole time were there Daniel wore an adorable little hospital gown with lions on it, and a disposable diaper. He looked so cute! Unfortunately, we didn't have a camara with us. Oh well.

Around 8:00 Thursday evening we got permission to give Daniel clear liquids because the pin had finally passed safely into his colon and now he just needed to poop it out. For some reason they didn't want him to have solids, which didn't make any sense to me because if they wanted him to poop, then it seemed like he should eat something. But anyway, we gave Daniel lots of apple juice, water, chicken brother and orange jello, but by Friday morning he still had not pooped. We were seriously singing songs about poop and telling him to poop about every 30 seconds because were so ready for this thing to be out. But no such luck. The Dr. said that they would try an enema, and if that didn't work then they would have to go in the rectum and pull it out. Well, a nurse came in while Daniel was napping at about 10:30 on Friday morning and gave him the enema. He cried at first, but before she was done he had stopped crying and had a silly look on his face. It must have been an interesting experience! About 5 minutes later were giving him more jello when his face started turning red he started grunting. Yay! Poop! We gave him a few minutes to get it all out and when we checked his diaper, there it was! The pin came out! There was no blood or anything, so it seemed like it had passed without any problems.

About an hour and half later were packed up an headed out. They told us to keep an eye out for any signs of internal bleeding, but they didn't expect anything to be wrong. Throughout this whole ordeal I know we had a lot of people praying for us and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It was the scariest experience of my life, but I am so thankful that we were in the hands of a good doctor and a mighty God. Actually, one of the hardest parts about this whole experience was that we were put on the oncology floor in Dornbechers because the hospital was filled to capacity, and it was the only place where they had room for us to stay overnight. So over the course of our day and half there, we saw lots of kids and families who are dealing with things 100 times more difficult than what we were there for. Some of these kids lived on this floor. There rooms were as cozy and homey as you could possibly make them. We even saw a little boy who couldn't have been more than a few months older than Daniel who was dealing with some type of cancer. I know I will be thanking God every day now that I have a healthy baby, and praying for his continued health. What a blessing it is to be alive and healthy!