Fun at the Dr's

Today I got to spend 4 hours and who know how much money to be told, "hmm, we don't know. take him home and keep an eye on him. If he gets worse, bring him back in."

so, with that little teaser, here's the story.

About 10:30 this morning Bryan swallowed a little rubber ball thing. Came off of a toy where there is a plastic man with stick balls for each hand and foot. You throw it against the wall, it sticks then walks itself down the wall, slinky style. Apparently the toy had broken, Byran found one of the little ball things - and swallowed it! Right after swallowing it he was hacking, coughing, and wheezing something fierce. Then he seemed okay again and I figured it had passed on down tot he stomach and would make it's way through - if you know what I mean. I called the dr's office and the nurse confirmed that I should just keep an eye on him and she gave me a list of things to watch for.

At about 2:30 he started complaining again that his throat hurt and he was wheezing again. He was coughing and wheezing - he sounded like he had croup. I called the Dr's again and at 3:00 I was on my way to the dr. They confirmed that he sounded like he had an obstruction - so they sent us to the hospital to get a barium swallow test to see how large the thing was and where it was stuck, etc...

The Barium Swallow test reveled NO blockage. Interesting, since he was still wheezing and complaining of pain. The called the Dr and told him the results. Then the Doc ordered a couple chest x-rays to see if it maybe he breathed it in rather than swallowing it. more waiting while they had the tests read. Nothing there either.

So - despite the fact that Bryan is wheezing like he has croup and he fusses about every 30 - 60 minutes of pain, we are home, an we are assuming that everything is fine. The doc prescribed a steroid to take down any inflammation that would be causing the wheezy croupy sound. His best theory right now is that Bryan was already coming down with croup - or something like unto it - and it just "happened" to decided to magically show symptoms after the sticky ball swallowing incident. (he had a slight temp of 100*)

The bummer for me - besides wondering if there is some sticky foreign object lodged somewhere in my son causing trouble - was that we had family plans tonight that we ended up having to cancel. Oh well. That's life.