September 15, 2002

On a recent Friday, I left work at 1:00 pm, stopped and retrieved my 11-yr old son from daycare, and proceeded home. On the way there, we passed the local shopping center - which was completely blocked off to traffic. There were police, fire, and rescue scattered throughout the parking lot. Figuring it was accident-related and seeing there was plenty of support already on the scene, I drove on home.

Knowing that I had to pick up a few things at the grocery store (within the aforementioned shopping center), my son and I decided to walk over, which is only 3 minutes away by foot. On the way, we encountered a neighbor who informed us a bomb threat had been called in to the grocery store, and they had to evacuate.

Okay. So shopping was out of the question. Maybe a movie from Blockbuster to watch later instead. We continued walking to the shopping center only to find they had shut every store down. There went the movie, too.

Walking back home, my son became quite fraught with fear that we were in danger. He was convinced it was Bin Laden’s gang. I tried to reassure him that the terrorists had no interest in our quiet little town. I told him it was probably just some punk kid who was in desperate need of attention. (As it turned out, the alarm had been a hoax.) That seemed to have worked at qualming his fears. Unbeknownst at the time, a greater personal crisis was about to present itself.

An hour has now passed, and so has the previous crisis.

I’m sitting at my desk, playing “mouse potato.” My son walks over by me, and as I turn to see what he’s doing - I find him with his finger rammed halfway up his nose. I tell him “Geez! Get a tissue!” He disappears off towards the bathroom.

A couple of minutes later he comes hurrying out by me, frantic. His nose is bleeding. “Mom – I can’t breath, Mom! My nose…” Calmly, “Nurse Mom” takes over, and we head for the bathroom to tend to the nosebleed.

“Mom - I can’t breath, Mom! There’s something in my nose!.” “What do you mean, there’s something in your nose?” I ask him. (Of course, I’m thinking he’s just got a nose filled with, well - you know - with nose stuff.)

“There’s something in my nose…it hurts… !” “What?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he nervously tells me. “Then how do you know there’s something in your nose?” I ask.

Waiting on an answer (and not getting one), I inquire, “did you put something up your nose?” “I - I don’t know,” he says. “What do you mean you don’t know? What did you stick up your nose,” I demand. “I don’t know what it is,” he says.

“I - I … I put part of a pencil up my nose,” he finally admits. “WHAT? What part?” Dumbfounded, I tilt his head back and look in his nose. (Further questioning revealed it was the metal pencil tip from a mechanical pencil.) Sure enough, all the way back in the nasal cavity I can make out a shape that looks like a round object with a hole in the middle. It’s moving, so I know it’s not completely lodged.

Oh my gosh! I shook my head in disbelief. “What in the hell possessed you to stick that up your nose?” I ask. “Mom, is it going to come out? Will it go to my brain? “Mom, am I going to die?” “You’re not going to die - from this.” “Mom, do I have to go to the hospital?” “Not yet,” I tell him.

Fortunately, I’m a certified EMT. I jumped into EMT-mode. Presented with the situation at hand, I pondered the available options. “Okay. You have two choices here. You can either blow it out, or you can suck it down. Take your pick,” I tell him. After a moment of nervous silence from him, I propose that he try to blow it out first.

He blows. Nothing. Well, some blood. He blows again. More blood. “It’s stuck Mom! I can’t get it out,” he cried. “You’re going to have to blow harder than that,” I tell him.

With a deep breath, he blows as hard as he can - and out pops the culprit metal pencil tip, and more blood into the tissue I’m holding.

“Mom, did it come out?” he asks. “Yep. Here in the tissue.”

In his mind, all is well again. Just as with the previous one, this crisis, too, has passed. He’s alive, didn’t have to go to the hospital, and so far - hasn’t gotten in trouble.

“What in the world made you stick that up your nose,” I ask him. “You’ve never done anything like that before!” “I had a boogie in my nose and I couldn’t get it out,” he tells me. “I thought I could use the tip like a scoop and scoop it out.” I shrugged with disgust, but then started to chuckle. “I hope you learned a valuable lesson here, and take it you won’t be doing this again?”

“No Mom, I think I’ll stick with the pencil erasers.”

Later that same day, in a neighboring town…… [ next ]

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