Would you still call it a splinter?

So the call came in from the kids' school about 11 am. Nicholas had gotten something -- "a piece of straw?" -- stuck in his foot and the teachers had tried to remove it but he wouldn't let them because it hurt too much. So as I drive over to school, I'm thinking, "I can't believe I have to go pick up my son for a splinter." I get there, and he really can't walk on it, so we head over to my mom's (who lives very near.) She breaks out the tweezers and the hemostats, along with a warm water soak, some alcohol and some numbing spray. I decide I'm not going to let a little screaming and crying stop me from pulling out the (admittedly large) splinter. I mean, it's easy for the teachers. THEY just have to make a phone call and the problem goes away. I'M the one who has to sit in the ER all afternoon. So we got all set up, I try to grasp the foreign body with the forceps (there is NO part of the object sticking out at all) and ---

I couldn't get it out. I tried. He screamed. I tried again. But then I realized that this is going to take causing more pain to my baby than I'm prepared to offer. Better let the professionals handle it.

This is what it looked like before treatment.







And here is a closeup.




After some discussion about whether the doctors' office could handle it or not (they were at lunch, natch, so we couldn't actually ask them) we decided to head straight to Children's Hospital. We have had very good treatment there on two other occasions (stitches), and we were not disappointed this time.

There was the ride in the wheelchair (the nurse actually popped some wheelies).

And the x-ray (Nicholas held VERY still).









And of course the cartoon watching. When he was telling the story at the dinner table tonight, the entire tale was punctuated with "and the nurse turned the TV down" and "then we watched Nickolodeon some more" and "the TV was on, but we weren't watching it."











We did read an I Spy book. And one of the nurses read it with us while the Physician's Assistant dug around in his foot.

The worst part, of course, was getting the lidocaine injection. However, when we saw the offending object, we all realized that the pain caused by numbing the area was WELL worth it, and that no teacher, mom, or nurse grandma would have had any luck getting this SPLINTER out. It took the PA at least 20 minutes to work it free.

It is fully 3/4" long and the entire thing was lodged inside his foot. Nicholas was most enamored of the fact that it was "painted" with his blood. He will be presenting it for show and tell tomorrow at school.










He's feeling much better, thank you for asking.