An Interesting Experience

On Saturday night my friend's ten year old son Evan came into her room frantic. "Mommy," he yelled, "I swallowed a marble."

"You did what?" she asked.

"I swallowed a marble."

Apparently Evan had been playing with something called Magnetics, which we later found out had been recalled. In a freak accident the marble fell into his mouth and he swallowed it.

Debbie didn't know what to do so she called the doctor. The doctor said, "Don't worry about it. It'll come out the other end."

OK. So Debbie and Evan went to sleep, or at least tried to go to sleep. But Evan really did not feel good. He stayed up all night. Early the next morning, Debbie took Evan to the emergency room at a nearby center that is not a complete hospital. After they took X-Rays they told Debbie to take Evan to a full service hospital. The marble was stuck in his esophogus.

They went to the emergency room at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI. There they sat as the doctors hoped that the marble would go down on its own. Whenever Evan tried to eat anything that day he could not keep it down. At one point they told Evan to eat so that it would hopefully go down, but he couldn't. Finally, they admitted him. The next day when the marble still had not moved the doctors did a procedure to get it out. Apparently, because Evan has allergies a cord running between his esophogus and his stomach is smaller than usual. Therefore, the marble got caught.

I spent a lot of time with Evan at the hospital. I was amazed with the pediatric ward. They try to make it as comfortable as possible for the kids. I had always thought that the pediatric ward would be the worst floor in a hospital. But at least when you know a child is going to be OK pedes isn't so bad. They have computers available that you can take back to your room, arts and crafts supplies, games, DVDs that you can rent out and put in your own DVD player. Evan was thrilled, after the procedure that they even had X-Box 360s. I was amazed that there is a huge room in the ward that has artificial grass and books. Interestingly, for some of the kids they don't move them on gurnees. Instead they use red wagons. Certainly it's never good to be in the hospital. But, I was shocked at how pleasant pedes is. The ward's staff should give themselves a pat on the back. Their kind attitude and helpful service really made a difficult situation easier.

Evan's teachers were also very friendly. They called to tell him to feel better. They had the other students send him cards. It was really nice.

Yesterday was Evan's last day of school. Today he went to the movies. You'd never know he had a minor surgery earlier in the week. Kids sure are resilient.