Twin1 somehow decided to stuff his ear with a piece of wadded up tissue this evening. Had I been a first-time parent, I probably would have ran crying to the pediatrician or the nearest emergency room. But after having raised five children, I figured I could fix the situation with the right-sized tweezers, my HTC Desire’s Flashlight app, and a steady hand. And, with God’s grace, I managed to take out the minute ball of tissue.
This episode reminded me of a scarier one that involved OnlyGirl pushing up a peanut (!) into her nose when she was a preschooler. Thankfully, I managed to intervene while the peanut was still at the anterior naris — that’s the fancy medical term for the nostril hehe (more details here).
Here’s what I did: I pinched the affected side of her nose — I can’t remember anymore if it was the right or left — to prevent the peanut from going in any further. Then I took out the tweezers from my Swiss Army knife. (By some stroke of luck, I happened to have one with me at that time, way back in those days when they’re still allowed in carry-on luggage.)
The peanut was too big to take out with the tiny tweezers so I had to crush the peanut into smaller pieces using the tweezers and take it out piece by piece.
It took a lot of work, a lot of prayers, and ,surprisingly, a lot of cooperation from OnlyGirl who kept very still during the entire ‘operation’. The incident taught her not to do such a thing again…and it provided me with good teaching material to her siblings later on to deter them from doing such a thing. Too bad they didn’t extend the application to their ears *sigh*
Kids, don’t try this at home!
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