The beak.

You may have caught the tale of the beak on my Instagram stories last week (it’s saved to my highlights — it’s high quality investigative journalism… JK it’s not), but we had quite the eventful trip to the ER last week.

We made it all the way to August 1st without an emergency (this time last summer, we were approximately 10 stitches–in the head– deep… and not far from a broken arm), so I guess that’s a good thing?  Anyway, it all started with a trip to the beach, as most of our days do.

My friend Beth was on the Cape for the week, and we made last minute plans for a beach day with our kids.  The weather was a little iffy (much colder and windier at the beach), and we were about to pack up and move the playdate to our place when Nicky tripped and face planted directly onto one of Beth’s kids’ sand buckets (he hit it hard enough that it cracked).  He got a bloody lip, but was soon running around with the girls, and acting like his usual self.  But then his nose started bleeding a little (but just from the left nostril).  And it didn’t stop.  For several hours.

It didn’t seem to bother him at all (though me cleaning him up and interrupting his fun did very much bother him), but once our friends left, I decided to call our pediatrician at home just in case.  I thought maybe he had broken his nose (he had a little bruising on the bridge of his nose), but also worried that it had been bleeding (not a lot, but still) for a while.  The nurse recommended I trust my judgement, but suggested we go to the ER rather than urgent care in case he had a wound that needed to be cauterized (I will never be able to un-Google image search that).  

I packed a bag with snacks and Pull-ups and water bottles and a phone charger (because I learned from the aforementioned broken arm ER visit… lots of waiting = lots of Paw Patrol) and off we went to Cape Cod Hospital.  Nicky’s nose continued to bleed while we were in the waiting room, so I felt confident that I’d made the right decision to go.  

Once we were settled in a room, a nurse took Nicky’s vitals and began cleaning his nostril.  She kept telling him that he was doing a great job, and that we’d likely be going home soon…

UNTIL SHE SPOTTING SOMETHING STUCK WAY UP IN HIS NOSTRIL.

Yes, my friends.  He didn’t have a broken nose (actually, they never confirmed his nose status once the thing was spotted– so who knows), he had a toy lodged far up in his nostril.  When he fell earlier in the day and hit his face, it pierced his nasal cavity, hence the bleeding. 

The nurse thought it might be part of the bucket he fell on, but I respectfully disagreed, both because the thing in there was orange (the bucket was green, as Beth confirmed with a photo by text)… and because (this is shameful) I’ve caught him sticking various things up his nose before.  Mostly Cheerios.  But a toy didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.

Things escalated so quickly that I didn’t really have time to freak out (I did a tiny bit, but mostly not).  So please don’t feel badly if you’re laughing.  Like, I would prefer that.  Children are nuts.  They are true blessings.  But they are nuts.

The nurse told us that we’d likely be there for a while, and grabbed a coloring book for both kids (Grace was with us, and provided helpful commentary along the way….).  But within minutes, we were being moved to a new room.  One with more equipment… and a door, maybe so Nicky couldn’t escape? Or so the other patients would be shielded from the sounds of a toy being freed from a two-year-old’s nose?  The ENT doctor literally ran in (his office is in a separate building, I later learned), ready to go.  

I’ll spare you the details, but the doctor said he’d have one, maybe two chances to get the thing (still no clue what it was at this point) out without sedating Nicky, and so it was important to keep him still and calm (LOL).  The surgical tweezers didn’t do the trick, so he sent for forceps while I held a very un-calm Nicky (and I think I cried a little because it was traumatic…  but Grace was just chilling with her coloring book). 

I need to make a note to look at a map of the human head, because I just remembered that the doctor wanted Nicky to stay upright so the thing didn’t travel “upwards.”  I guess I sort of thought the nose was like a horseshoe, and that if something went in one nostril, it would come out the other.  But that can’t be right.

Anyway, the forceps got the job done.  I was holding Nicky tightly to me, and saw out of the corner of my eye what looked like an old bloody tooth.  And I almost fainted.  But the doctor kept saying, “Look at this!” And I was kind of yelling, “I can’t look at that!” And then the nurse was sort of yelling, “What is that?!” And I was definitely gagging.  And then the doctor said, “I think it’s a plastic beak.  From a toy.”  And then I was just yelling, “What the heck is that?! A beak?! I’ve never seen this beak! A beak?!”

And Nicky was asking for a snack… acting like he wasn’t covered in blood, and that a doctor hadn’t just pulled a plastic beak from his nose, one that he himself had clearly jammed up there at some point.

Grace very calmly noted that the beak looked “like an Easter beak.  One from the little toy chicks we played with at Easter.”  She’s usually right (about everything), so I didn’t discount her guess… but I also knew I put those chicks away with the other Easter decorations on, like, April 2nd.  But…

DEAR LORD ALMIGHTY.  THERE’S NO WAY FOR US MORTALS TO KNOW HOW LONG THAT THING WAS IN THERE.

So it could have been in there since EASTER (I don’t think it could have been, but I’m also the person that just wrote a very public note to self about researching how the nose connects to the rest of the body).  Why?  Why do children do the things they do?  And if he hadn’t fallen, who knows when we would have discovered it was in there.  I just can’t even.  

By the time we got home and the kids were asleep, I just sort of sat at the kitchen table, in the dark, laughing.  That’s what you do when crazy things happen, but then everyone is safe.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep (what, with the adrenaline and all), so I went down to the basement to dig up the Easter stuff and investigate Grace’s theory…  and what do you know? 

THE FIRST PRETEND CHICK I PULLED OUT WAS MISSING ITS BEAK.

I grabbed a second one (with an intact beak), to compare to the stuck-in-Nicky’s-nose beak (which the ENT kindly dropped in a specimen cup for us).  And bingo.  The beak was a match.  

It’s been several days and, as far as I know, Nicky hasn’t stuck anything else up his nose.  I’m hoping he’s learned a very valuable lesson (having forceps shoved up my nose would teach me all kinds of things), but I fear he has learned precisely nothing. 

He told Nick that he had to go to the hospital because he “was a little sneezy,” and he told my mother that he was there because something was wrong with his socks.  So… neither of those statements are very accurate.  

Anyway, that’s the tale of the beak.  I think we’ll be laughing about this one for a while. 

Also On Tap for Today:

• Getting organized for an less eventful (fingers crossed + noses blocked) week
• Dinner inspiration: Our Healthiest One Pot Recipes from The Kitchn
• Working on some DIY clean beauty products

What’s the weirdest thing you did as a child (or the weirdest thing your children have done — this is a safe space, feel free so air all your dirty laundry)?