The Rock

It was about 1:00 pm in the afternoon when I got the phone call from daycare letting me know that Bella had stuffed a small rock in her right ear. I was in a meeting with a few of my co-workers, so I had to step outside. When I first heard about it I just had to laugh. "Who does that?" I kept asking myself, kind of incredulous, and highly surprised.

As I left work and headed to get Bella I thought I would pick her up from daycare, take her to the pediatrician, get the rock out of her ear, and go home to finish the work day. Well, not so much … the rock was stuck kind of deep, and Bella wouldn’t stay still even when both a nurse and I were trying to hold her. So we were sent to the Children’s hospital ER - not before picking up Sofia early from school since I knew we would never make it back before the end of after care. At the hospital the doctor said they were going to have to call the ENT (Earns, Nose, and Throat) team. They gave Bella something to relax and stop moving so much, but that didn’t work. They had to heavily sedate her and after several tries, and like 3 hours later, they finally got the rock out.

During the entire thing Sofia was a wonderful, patient little girl. The people at Children's gave her paper and crayons, and there was a TV in the room, but the wait was long, the accommodations were not the most comfortable, and she didn't complain. I think she understood that Bella needed help, and we needed to be there for her. I was so proud of her.

By 7:30 pm we were finally on our way but since she was so out of it, it was like taking a drunk, stubborn 3 year old home. She insisted in getting up and walking, even though her legs wouldn’t support her. At one point - once we were home - she gave us a scare, fell down, and ended up with a bloody nose. When we finally managed to put her to bed she kept trying to get up, so I had to lie down next to her until she fell asleep. By then of course I fell asleep too, until 11pm when Lionel woke me up and I moved to our bed.

That whole afternoon was quite the experience but at least we did have funny moments too, like when we were finally in the car and Bella, completely out of it, looked at us in a moment of clarity and asked: “Did they get the rock out?” When she said that Lionel and I just had to break into a giant laugh.