Wednesday, June 16, 2010

My human vending machine

Well, this was a new one.

One week ago, Jesso swallowed a coin. And by "swallowed," I mean she literally ate it. I heard her chewing metal, looked over and asked what she had in her mouth. She swallowed, gulped and struggled to get it down, but then finally after she said, "I have a penny in my belly."

And so, the penny pursuit began.

Of course, the actual ingestion occurred at 5:05 p.m.--just in time for my frantic call to go directly to the nurse's line at All Children's rather than my pediatrician's office so I got the added humiliation of that aspect in addition to being a moron. After determining that she wasn't choking, they told me that we would just "have to let it pass" in three days.

That's grossspeak for going through her leavings searching for a coin the same color as her, er, leavings.

Three days came and went. It was a weekend, so I gave it until Monday before I called back. Then Tuesday because I really didn't want to call. And then Wednesday came, and still no sign, so I took her back.

If after a week of stool samples the home edition doesn't yield any results, then an X-ray is prescribed to see where the foreign object has lodged. So we went to the hospital and got the insurance shake-down before going up to radiology where a team of doctors looked for a penny in Jesso's belly.

After 2 hours of waiting and testing and talking, the X-ray was clear.

Lincoln had left the building.

Sometime over the weekend, it "had passed" and escaped the radar of my plastic fork and gag reflex.

I think we just spent 1000 Washingtons looking for that Lincoln.

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