Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Today was supposed to be relaxing. Peaceful. Routine. Things were on track; church, Sunday School and home just before lunchtime. I was standing in the kitchen contemplating our lunch menu and basking in the promise of the nothingness the day ahead held when the tranquility of the day was disrupted.

“Hank has to go to the doctor!” Joe proclaimed as he rushed into the kitchen.

“What?!” was my incredulous reply. Ten minutes earlier a perfectly healthy three- year- old boy had bounded into the house.

Well, I hadn’t counted on my angelic little Hanker-buddy sticking a bead up his nose. Yep, he took one of his sister’s beads from her necklace making kit, stuck it in his right nostril and sucked. Hard.

No amount of blowing, massaging or pleading could coax the tiny, silver bead from its cozy spot near the nasion of the nose.

Off to Urgent Care Hank and I went. We were almost immediately escorted into an exam room and a doctor greeted us promptly. She set right to work, using various tools of the trade. Initially we were laughing; joking about kids and what they put up their noses. But the bead wouldn’t budge.

Our joking lessoned. The doctor got more serious. Hank was sitting on my lap, his previously semi-permanent ear-to-ear grin becoming somewhat less ear-to-ear.

A few tears were shed as a long, plastic stick with a small loop on the end was stuck up and used to dig around in Hank’s nose.

But that darned bead just wouldn’t budge. I started to shake. Hank wasn’t smiling anymore. We’d been in that room poking and prodding for ten, twenty minutes now. The plastic stick was replaced with a metal tool, similarly shaped. Then a vacuum. The bead wouldn’t budge.

The doctor started to mumble about alternatives and my nervousness increased. What are the alternatives I queried. There was mumbling and nervousness as a response. I knew the alternatives, whatever they were, were very, very bad and probably involved a hospital and surgery. All for a stupid, teensy-tiny bead.

I started to feel sick, firstly because my baby boy who being as good as gold was in pain. A lot. When the doctor was digging around in his nose his crying was pitiful and mournful. So I was feeling pretty sorry for my poor Hanker-buddy yet, shamefully, irritated too since it was his fault we were there in the first place. But I also started to feel sick envisioning medical bills reaching stratospheric amounts all because Hank thought it would be what, fun? interesting? to stick a little, silver bead up his nose.

After a long while the doctor, armed with her metal loopy-stick thing, was finally able to make some progress. Hank, cradled on my lap with my arms quieting his flailing body, began to cry; a cry that shook his entire frame. Then, it happened, his doctor proclaimed, “It’s moving!” so I held on tighter as his sobs continued to convulse his poor little three-year-old body and the doctor’s face grew more and more determined and then, at long last, the offending bead was held in the doctor’s fingers. A loud cheer erupted in the exam room: the doctor, her nurse and me. I don’t know whose was louder or who was most excited. Hank was smiling again, hugging me and cheering along with the rest of us.

We are home now and the patient has all but forgotten the excitement of the day. Joe and I chuckle now; our banter jovial as we consider the trials our children put us through. My hand still isn’t quite steady but I know that this too will be forgotten in time and my children will, once again, lull me into a false hope that a quiet, lazy afternoon is possible.