Mabelle’s Horror Story:

When Mabelle was almost 3 years old I was busy on the phone with financial aid for the University of Utah. As always Mabelle became bored with her mother on the phone and was trying to get my attention. She had just finished off the bowl of popcorn she and her sisters were sharing. She was sitting across the room from me and I could see what she was about to do, but I could not get to her in time. It was a moment that seemed like slow motion as she pinched a popcorn kernel in each hand and placed and then pushed in each popcorn kernel into each ear canal.

That afternoon was one of the hardest of my life as I, a nurse, attempted to remove the kernels by myself while Mabelle kicked and screamed. I had a neighbor come over and had her try to help us with my older daughter. We then went in to see a very patient nurse practitioner who was unable to remove either one of the kernels. That night we went in to Wee Care Pediatrics and 4 adults and an older sister were not able to hold Mabelle still long enough to get out these 2 kernels.

The next day Mabelle was able to get into an Ear Nose Throat specialist, and he was unable to have her sit still to get the kernels out. The ear canals were now starting to swell around the kernels and Mabelle was reporting pain in the ears. The physician/surgeon wanted to schedule her for ear surgery under general anesthesia at the end of the week.
Since I was a Newborn ICU nurse I begged the doctor to please let me bring her back for another chance after we had drugged her up with conscience sedation. I promised to monitor her breathing and time it just right so that we could get her to sit still. So, he wrote me a prescription that could only be filled after I tried a couple of pharmacies. I had to go to a pharmacy that was connected to Davis Hospital in order to get the surgical sedation medication.

We came back with Mabelle dosed within 15 minutes, and she was giggling and unable to walk. We placed her n the table and the ENT doc was able to pop both of the kernels out in under a minute. Thus, after several people made it possible, we were able to avoid surgery for popcorn kernels.