The Missing Earring

It all started with a missing earring.

I had removed my earrings and placed it on my bedside table before I put both boys down for their naps. I usually don't put my jewellery within reach of the kids, but I was sooo tired that I figured that if I did fall asleep with the kids, chances are I should wake up with them.

WRONG.

I fell asleep with the boys and woke up to Gabriel playing with my earrings. He had climbed over me in my sleep and was fascinated by my pearlies.

The last thing I remember is him giving one of the earrings back to me. I don't recall if he had the other one in his hands, or if the other one was still lying on the table.

When hubby tried to put Gabriel to bed at night, he was puzzled to find one earring lying on the floor. He then asked me where the other one was, to which I was equally as puzzled as him!

We searched the floor, lifted up the mattresses and basically swept through the bedroom but it was nowhere to be found.

I didn't think too much about it, because it was a cheap earring and could be easily replaced.

Hubby, on the other hand, got quite concerned because he didn't want Gabriel finding it by accident and putting it in his mouth.

We teach our kids not to put things in their mouths, but while Sammy was never the type to taste what he had in his hands, Gabriel is a different ball game altogether. As a baby, he would taste everything he could get his hands on. Now at 21 months, he no longer does that often, but he's still not 100% safe yet.

It was then I thought, "Wait a minute. What if the missing earring has been swallowed by Gabriel?!!!" All my alarm bells went off in my head!

I went to Dr Google to see if its possible for a toddler to swallow an object and not display any symptoms of discomfort.

And yes. It is possible. *gasp*

The comforting thing though, is that in almost all the cases, the kid usually passes out the object within 24-48 hours.

Well, I decided to head to the A&E the very next day. I decided that if I knew that Gabriel had definitely swallowed the earring, I couldn't do anything but to wait it out. BUT if there was a 50% chance of him not swallowing the earring, I didn't want to worry myself crazy over it!

Our kids are covered by private insurance and we do pay through the roof for it. So it made cents (sense) to me to be just a bit more cautious.

Thing was, it was SUPER stormy that day! Germany stood right in the path of a hurricane and wind speeds were incredible! Our balcony furniture was thrown about and one of our chairs was spoilt cos of the wind!

While driving, I found myself praying out loud for safety! I even prayed and commanded the storm to calm down, the way Jesus calmed the storm down when the disciples were in the boat.

The next thing that went wrong was that I drove to the wrong hospital!

I had already parked the car, got Gabriel out, got the stroller out and walked all the way to the entrance before realizing that it was the wrong hospital.

Hub had called the emergency hotline at Bad Caanstatt. He was then forwarded to a doctor who advised him what to do. Needless to say, we both assumed that the doctor was from Bad Caanstatt.

But it turned out that the emergency hotline redirected my hub to a completely different Children's hospital (Olga hospital) and he didn't know that! There were 4 different A&E hotlines pertaining to 4 different areas, so one would think that each hotline was meant for a particular area.

But no, the 4 different numbers go straight to a central hotline. In that case, why don't they just have 1 A&E number with many different lines?

Argh. It was so frustrating for me. I had to go back to the car, pack Gabriel back in and drive the correct Children's hospital. All this while trying to make sure the wind didn't blow us away!

When I arrived at the correct Children's hospital, of course I couldn't find the entrance to the carpark! There were NO signs whatsoever. I ended up parking at the carpark of the hospital next to the children's hospital and had to walk.

By the time I got to the admission of Olga hospital, it was 2 hours after I had left home!

The great thing is, everything worked out really well after that. We got an X-ray for Gabriel and there was barely any waiting time. Maybe only 15 minutes?

I was hoping and praying that they wouldn't find anything inside him and HALLELUJAH!

All I saw was a very healthy respiratory system with no menacing foreign object lodged anywhere. And it looked like Gabriel was smiling on the X-ray! I almost laughed!

The funny thing after that was that I was asked to wait to see the doctor. I was quite puzzled because obviously there's nothing left to talk about right?

I waited another 15 mins before the doc saw me and all she said was,

"Well I got good news for you, which you'd already knew, there's nothing stuck in him!....  (Pause)

I don't really know what else to say! I guess you can go home now!"

"Thanks Doc!"

And off we went.

I was sooo relieved, felt a load fall off my shoulders and felt sooo happy all at once! All that adrenalin just disappearing after being so anxious the whole morning!

I had felt sooo guilt-ridden! All morning, my mind was racing through the "what ifs" and the "if only I hadn't..." scenarios.

In my desperation, I had tried searching for the earring in Gabriel's poo that morning and seriously, even though I'm HIS Mom and you know how they say "Moms can do everything?" Nope. Not true! This is one thing that I had to summon all my self-control to prevent myself from puking! It was that bad! I couldn't imagine having to do that for the next 7 days!

I was just so relieved to be spared of the waiting game and having to go through the "treasure" hunt!

And of course it was a wake-up call for me to be mindful of tiny objects around the kids!

(Post note: Sammy did find the earring in the end. Somewhere hidden in his room.)

Taken at the children's hospital.
My cheery little sweetie who probably thought it was such an interesting trip to the hospital!