My kid swallowed a coin!

… a five centavos that is.

2 hours after we arrived from Eco park, Saturday night,my daughter found a 5-centavo coin on the floor and accidentally swallowed it. Fortunately daughter now can talk and was able to tell me why she was coughing and having hiccups. I remembered I saw a coin on the floor and now it was gone. I asked her, “Y.z., where’s the coin?” She answered, “there!” pointing at her throat.

What? Did you swallow the coin? She’s making an action like she’s putting something inside her mouth and said, “Ahm! Coin.. Ahm! mouse (mouth)”.. I asked again, “Where is the coin now?” Still she pointed at her throat. I let her Dad ask the same questions, and she answered the same. I was hesitant of telling the Oldies because they might over-react.. and they did. But after a while, they thought, she could’ve not swallowed it. But I believe she did.

We were planning to bring Y.z. to her pedia on Monday, but I wanted her to poop first. She usually poops every 2-3 days, so Iwas expecting her to poop Sunday or Monday. I was planning on checking her poop.. yes, people.. I was determined to disect her poop to check if the coin came out with it.

But no poop came. We went to the St.Luke’s Hospital ER as what was told (by GrandAunt’ bestfriend). We were referred to a pediatrician who wasn’t present that day. A pretty resident Pediatrician attended to us who was a very accomodating “doctor” I’ve ever met. Her name suits her too, Dr. Young.

Anyway, they had Y.z.’s tummy x-rayed. And voila! There’s the coin inside her colon. The referred pediatrician said she wanted Y.z. be admitted and do a COLONOSCOPY. And that procedure costs a whopping PHP 80,000.00! that exluding Professional fee and what not. Can you imagine that? Money aside, she would want my daughter to undergo such a complicated procedure at her very young age? She’s barely 2 years old!

A resident ER consultant came to me and said, “it will pass. The coin is already there in the colon. It will just go with the poop.” I feel the same. I had to sign a “waiver” that I will just go with the Consultant’s suggestion to just let it pass and disregard the stupid idea of COLONOSCOPY.

A medtech came and gave Y.z. an Enema for children. In less than 10 minutes Y.z. was saying, “Mommy, Poopoo!” so we rushed into the CR. Yz doesn’t want to poop in her diapers anymore. I wasn’t able to check her poop since it went straight into the toilet bowl. lol

I thought she’s gonna poop some more, but she didn’t. The doctors wanted to let her poop once again before they’ll do a second x-ray. But then, they didn’t wait anymore and had her x-rayed again. Y.z. got scared of the sound of the moving machine so it was all shouting inside the X-ray room. The good side is, we didn’t find any coin anymore. Maybe it went down with the poop. Thank god…

The “referred” pediatrician talked to me through one of the meds’ cellphone there in ER and had the guts to say that she really was waiting for the baby to poop first before she wanted her to be admitted and do the COLONOSCOPY. geezus!

Anyway, it was all worth the experience. I know, boyfriend is a little pissed off because he had to spend for that small accident which was entirely my fault. Just like what GrandAunt always say, “it’s okay to spend for PEACE OF MIND.” That peace of mind cost Php 5,000.00.

Tagged as: Emergency room, peace of mind, st. lukes hospital, swallowed coin, Yz