After I got up, fed the kids, let the dog out and made my coffee, I sat down with my laptop to enjoy a little surfing and coffee sipping. Things were great, nice and relaxing. Then I thought, "I don’t think I’ve seen my one and three year old in a bit. I better go upstairs and see what’s going on."
Before I could get upstairs my three year old was on her way down. She came to tell me that her nose was “messy.” She caught a cold last week and “messy” means her nose is running and she needs a tissue. I took Faith into the bathroom and grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose. I noticed that she had some thick snot stuck to her nose so I leaned her backward over my lap to pull it out with a tissue.
As I was cleaning her nose so that she could breath better I was startled by what I saw. I found a teal colored bead lodged up in the bridge of her nose! I said, “Faith! There’s a bead in your nose!! How am I gonna get that out!!” This thing was lodged well and would NOT move!
So I tried pushing on the side of her nose to force it downward. Faith told me that this action was painful so I stopped. I decided I would find some tweezers and try to pull it out. Upon further examination of the bead in comparison with the tweezers, I realized this would not work because the bead was so large compared to her nose that there was no extra space around it to pull it out.
As I sat thinking about how I was going to get this bead out, Faith turns to me and asks, “How’s Gracie’s bead in her nose??” I screamed, “WHAT!!?!?! YOU PUT A BEAD IN GRACIE’S NOSE TOO!!?!?!” So I grab Gracie, lay her on my lap and proceed to check out her nose. Phew! No bead. Thank God. I guess if she did have a bead in her nose, it either fell out or went down her throat and she swallowed it.
After calming back down, I decided I better call my husband, John, and see if he had any suggestions on how to get this bead out. I told him it was lodged and that she was probably going to have to go to urgent care so that they can get it out. John was not willing to spend the $50 at urgent care when he was sure we could get it out. So John decides he is going to run home from work and give it a try.
John calls me from his cell phone on his way home and starts asking me all kinds of questions about the bead's size, shape and location. He was using the commute time to plan how and with what he was going to remove this bead. When he got home he scanned his workbench in the garage and pulled out these tools to aid him in the bead removal.
At first John tried using the large tweezers with the smaller tips. These would have worked but he could not get a hold of the bead because Faith was scared out of her mind would not hold still. John decided he would use the clay tool and insert the tip into the hole in the bead (we were lucky enough that the bead's hole was accessible). That actually dislodged the bead from the bridge but it did not pull it forward much.
By now, Faith is crying because pulling that bead from where it was lodged in the bridge really hurt. She is so scared that she does not want to let her father come anywhere near her! I sit her up and tell her in a gentle voice, “Faith, the bead has to come out. I know it hurts. I need you to try blowing really hard to get it out.”
We had actually tried blowing it out before we started amature surgery, but it didn’t work because it was lodged. I held the other nostril closed and said, “Blow! Hard!” Faith blew and blew and blew. Finally the bead appeared right at the opening of the nostril. I then realized that the bead was bigger than her nostril opening so I squeezed behind the bead and popped it out. The look of excitement and relief of her face was priceless.
I can not believe how big this thing was compared to her nose. Here is a picture of it compared with a dime.
I asked Faith if she was going to do this again and she has promised me she will not. Only time will tell.
What has your child put up their nose and what did you have to do to get it out? Leave your link or a comment and let us know!
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