What was he thinking?
My 4 year old decided to swallow a screw today. Okay, he didn’t decide to swallow it .. just put it in his mouth, and accidentally swallowed it. The result is the same though: a trip to the hospital. He was in tears when they came to tell me. I think he was scared, and it hurt going down. By the time we got there though, he was calmed down a lot and wasn’t in any pain. Of course, I wanted to make sure we still saw the doc since he couldn’t tell us anything about the screw. Was it rusty? Pointed? Three inches long? He just said it was a ‘top screw’. Image searches on my iPhone revealed no such thing .. and apparently Daddy told him it was a top screw.
I could tell he was going to be okay when he darted out of the X-ray room and yelled that he was just going to have to poop it out. Sure enough, we waited another 30mins or so and the doc told us the same thing. All and all it was a harrowing experience mostly for us parents. My son’s memories probably going to be of playing his iPod touch in the wait room, the X-ray tech giving him a sticker, and of the X-ray itself which shows a very obvious screw in his belly.
For me though, it’s a painful reminder of how hard it is to deal with bureaucracy. He STILL doesn’t have his medical card even though he’s been here a year. Every time I call they tell me it’s in processing, and it takes 30 days for processing. I’ve sent the stupid thing (and all the information they’ve asked for) more than once. I’ve even talked to them on the phone and was told by more than one person that I didn’t even have to send anything along since he was a Canadian citizen by being born to one (me). Left hand .. right hand..
Maybe I should photocopy the hospital bill when I get it so I can send it to both hands. Maybe one of them will get their fingers out of my wallet long enough to pay it .. or at the very least send me his card.
