25 cents

This wonderful event just had to be documented.

Elise was taking a nap on my bed. Since they've started sharing a room I just really needed them to take a nap and they were just being silly and not going to sleep. So I snapped and put Elise on my bed to take a nap. I was downstairs enjoying the silence when I heard Elise gagging and then crying. I ran up stairs and asked Elise what happened. She said she swallowed a penny. I asked her where she got it, and she pointed to my nightstand. I knew I didn't have a penny on my nightstand, but I did have a quarter. I asked how she swallowed a quarter, and I guess it was in her mouth then she decided to take a drink from my water bottle. OOPS! Then she proceeded to throw up! So I rushed her to the bathtub and tried to start damage control of my bed, my bathroom, and my 4 year old. Wonderful!

After that she kept throwing up. I called her doctor and they said to watch her, make sure she is breathing ok, and if she complains of pain to bring her in. She was breathing fine but still kept throwing up. I waited about and hour and half and then decided to take her in. When we got to the doctors office, they were pretty good to get us back fast. When the medical assistant asked what we were here for, he chuckled and said, "That's right your the quarter girl." Oh dear, I guess the office had a good laugh. Her doctor looked at her quickly and sent us to the Riverton Hospital that has an extension of Primary Children's to get an x-ray. But they close at 5 and it was 4:40. So I booked it to the hospital and got there right at 5. Thank heavens! They got us in really quick and verified the quarter was stuck in her esophagus. I wish I would have taken a picture of the x-rays, it was really freaky to see the quarter. But they didn't have a doctor at this hospital to extract it so we had to go to Primary Children's in Salt Lake. By this time she'd thrown up about 10 times.

So we booked it to Salt Lake to start the process their. Luckily Elise has been breathing fine, just throwing up. We arrived and checked in. When we told them what happened the nurse asked if she was normally that pale. I didn't see a difference, but she wanted to check her stats. She was normal, but my children are just very white! :) So we waited, got a room and waited some more. The doctor came in and examined her then consulted with a radiologist and a ear, nose, and throat doctor. Surgery was a possibility. They finally decided the radiologist would just go in with a x-ray camera and some tubes and try to extract it. FUN! Elise was a trooped the whole time, even when they strapped her to the table. She thought it was funny. Then they stuck the tube down her nose! Not so fun after that. The doctors and assistants had told her, her job was to spit the quarter out when she felt it. It only took about 3 minutes and it came right out! YAY! After that Elise was happy as a clam! We got her ice cream and fries after we were done.

I hope she really really learned her lesson. She now says, "We don't put monies in our mouth!" That's right!

The "prize" she now wants to take it to show and tell at preschool. Weird girl!

I'm very happy and grateful she is fine. I'm also very thankful for all the health care professionals that were so good to us and our daughter. I've always been so impressed with Primary Children's Medical Center. So grateful in so many ways.