Waiting On Pins And Needles

Our Sunday this weekend seemed like just a regular Sunday. Brendon and Nate got together to study Sunday evening, so I told Melanie I was going to come with Brendon so we could get some sewing and mending done together. The boys were out in the foyer of the apartment complex studying, and I was holding a pin between my teeth ironing a seam. Neither Melanie and I can remember what was said, but I must have said something exciting because the pin got sucked into my mouth and down my throat.

I looked at Melanie with wide eyes and she ran to the foyer to get our husbands. Brendon was a little scared, but mostly I think he was excited to have an excuse to drive like Mario Andretti to the emergency room.

I could still feel the pin in my throat. It didn't hurt...but I could feel it there. Brendon kept telling me not to talk or swallow in the hopes that it wouldn't move down deeper. It's much easier to resist swallowing when you're not concentrating on it. When we got to the emergency room Brendon tried to make them understand that maybe if a doctor saw me right away he could just simply pull the pin out since it was still in my throat. They called me into triage right away, but the woman in there insisted it was just lodged where it was and they would see me shortly. Shortly turned out to be a whole two hours later (at least they were playing "Remember the Titans" on tv). We finally made it to a room, but it was another hour before we were seen by anyone. Very busy emergency room!

We finally saw a doctor and he ordered x-rays. The wait in the x-ray line was another 45 minutes, and then another hour before the doctor came in to tell us about the x-rays. It felt like the pin was still in my throat (looking back it was probably just a scratch or something I could feel...because the pin was long gone from my throat). The doctors said they had poured over the x-rays and could not find the pin. There was something in my stomach but it was too small to be the pin so they assumed it was a glitch on the x-ray. They asked if I was sure I swallowed a pin. By now it was 2:30 am and I was exhausted and doubting myself so I started to wonder "did I not swallow a pin?" The doctors left to call the G.I. doctor (who Brendon insisted on calling G.I. Joe) and discuss with him what to do next.

All this time, much to my amusement, Brendon had been using the hand sanitizers on the wall every five minutes and shuddering at the thought of how many germs are in the hospital, proving to me that he has most definitely inherited the Lundberg paralyzing fear of germs.

At around 3:00 am the Respiratory Therapist came to give me a mask of Lidocaine to breathe to slightly numb my throat. Then the nurse, resident, and attending doctors came to administer the scope. The doctor warned me it would be "uncomfortable to say the least" and I would say that was a gross understatement. They doused the long black tube in Lidocaine gel and shoved it up my nose and it curved down my throat, stopping around the collarbone area. I had to use every ounce of concentration I could muster to not throw up on the doctors. They left the tube in there for minutes and they all looked through the camera at my throat; I thought I would get used to the feeling and it would be easier, but actually the longer it was in there the more I thought I was going to lose it. As they were pulling it back out I thought, "How embarrassing...I'm going to barf on doctors". Thankfully it was just dry heaves (probably because I'd had nothing to eat but a pin in 8 hours).

My Grandma Betty has a saying that my mom would always tell me to remind us to keep the Sabbath day holy: "Every stitch sewn in on Sunday, will have to be pulled out on Monday". But my mom and I always thought sewing was fun rather than work so we didn't really abide by Grandma's saying. But when Brendon called my parents to update them after the scope through my nose incident Mom said, "Every stitch sewn in on Sunday will have to be pulled through your nose on Monday". Good one Mom.

Anyway, they still couldn't find the pin, but they reassured me that I could probably just let nature run it's course. Only a rare 10% have problems passing things. I was so annoyed they hadn't told us this earlier...we wouldn't have sat for 7 hours in uncomfortable chairs in the emergency room if we had known. Still, they wanted to consult more doctors and run more tests.

The G.I. doctor arrived about 45 minutes later. He talked to us about the options, and let us know that they might just have to let it pass (if it was beyond the reach of their tools) but that there were possible side effects of that. If something went wrong with nature taking its course worst case scenario they would have to cut out parts of my intestines or I could die. Ha. Over a pin. He wanted to do a CAT scan and then possibly an endoscopy, and he left to call his attending for approval. He came back to inform us that the attending wanted to do an endoscopy and she was on her way into the hospital. He left us to wait.

A while later he came back to tell us that he wanted to do more x-rays, because he saw a spot in my stomach that looked like it could be the pin. He realized that the spot the doctors had seen earlier was most likely the pin, but it was rotated in such a way that it looked small. He said if that spot were in fact the pin, it looked like it was beyond their reach so he started giving me instructions as to what complications to look as nature took it's course. He said I would have to check my stool to look for the pin until I found it(AACK!!) and I would have to check in with my primary care physician for more x-rays.

So then we went back for more x-rays to see if we could get a better view of what might be the pin. When they got those x-rays back, they realized it was the pin and it was still in the stomach so they would be able to surgically remove it. Finally! A solution. They said after the surgery we would just have to hang around for an hour then we could go home. I was so worried about Brendon because by then I knew I was calling in sick the next day, but he didn't have that option with a big speech on Tuesday.

The attending doctor arrived and they prepped me for surgery. A nurse, two doctors, and two anesthesiologists; I looked around the room and felt so embarrassed that all these people were here at 4 in the morning because I swallowed a pin. The gave me the dreaded I.V. (I hate needles!) and then I was out.

When I woke up Brendon told me that during surgery they realized that the pin had punctured through my stomach and they wanted to keep me there for the day at least, maybe a few days, to monitor me. I kept saying "You're joking!" but after he said "beep" (a Merkley thing) I knew he wasn't lying. Darn! I was so looking forward to going home and sleeping!

Brendon said that I had been talking for quite a while as I was coming out of sedation, and that they all thought I was awake. He said any time a nurse or doctor would come in the room to ask how I was doing I would say, "Thank you! Thank you so much for everything." And I also told Bren "I love you" like fifty times before I finally came to. He was like "ok, ok I get it!" Ha ha. Apparently I'm a very loving, grateful person when I'm unconscious. What a nerd.

Brendon finally left after surgery (6:00 am) to get a two hour nap in before he had to be at work. The nurses promised me I would be moved to a hospital room by 7:00...8:00 at the latest. The room I was in had no t.v., and it seemed to be a storage room/passageway for every doctor and nurse in the hospital. I wasn't able to sleep because of that, I wasn't allowed to eat yet, there was no t.v. to keep me occupied, and my phone battery had died. I literally had nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and read the labeled supply drawers (with the exception of Melanie's fun visit) until 1:00 pm when they finally found a room available for me.

They let me eat lunch around 2:00 (YAY!!!) and then discharged me around 4:30. Needless to say, by the end of the hospital stay I had heard more pin cushion jokes than I hope to hear in a lifetime.