Help! My Child Swallowed a.....

A dime. Yep. I've heard many stories about children swallowing coins, but I have always been pretty thankful it never happened to us. Until yesterday that is.


Faced with that dreadful moment where you hear your 22-month old choking and spitting up, I race over and see on the carpet some blood mixed with spit up. My eyes widen in panic. My heart begins to race. I open his mouth and I'm face-to-face with that inevitable moment - the horror of seeing a shiny dime at the back of my child's throat and being powerless to do anything to stop it from being swallowed.

I was NOT going to go down without a fight. I immediately turned him face-forward, whacked his back several times. Within several seconds, fortunately---the gagging stopped, but the coin was not recoverable. I immediately called poison control who told me to take him to the ER. They were concerned that although he seemed to be breathing fine, that the blood might have caused some damage to the esophagus. Also, it was always a good idea to get an X-ray to see if it was lodged anywhere.

So, with a sweet prayer from Micah, we headed off to the Emergency Room.

And waited...



Finally, got admitted. Then they took some vitals.
And we waited....


Hmhh...and then waited.


Couldn't take the wait
any longer.


Finally, after 1 hour 20 minutes, the X-ray Tech came.



And after two full hours, during nap time of course,
the doctor came in. You'll never believe this.
He told me the unimaginable....

He said, "Ma'am, there's no dime there."
"What???", I exclaimed. "I saw it in the back of his throat with my own eyes."
"Yes, we checked everywhere and the dime isn't there."

Praise, that we didn't have to pump his stomach or anything. But, I got to tell you, I am simply dumbfounded. No---boggled beyond belief. I went home and retraced the area where he vomited and still no dime. I'm so confused. If it's not here, and not in him, than where did it go?? When I get to heaven, second thing I'm going to ask is "God, remember a long time ago when Caelan swallowed that dime - what happened to it??" I'm going to wait another 48 hours until his stool passes, and if I don't see a dime, I'm going to take him in for another X-ray. I just have to believe the x-rays are wrong, because unless it's a miracle -- which with God, all things ARE possible--I have got to know where that dime went. I have several more gray hairs, but I do have a lot to be thankful for. And laugh about.

Yes, one day this will be REALLY funny. I have yet another exciting segment in the adventures of motherhood. Not sure how much more I can take of this....adventure.