Pass me the ball!

For his birthday back in November, Garrett received a fun care package from his cousins Nora and Ella which included some hand-made cards, a few pieces of candy, and a packet of Mighty Beans, about 2.5-cm-long, ovaloid, collectible toys. Each "bean" contains a small metal ball that makes the capsule roll in all kinds of wacky, unpredictable directions.

Garrett is a sucker for little character-type toys: animals in a "toob," Littlest Pet Shops, Lego mini-figures, etc. So the Mighty Beanz were a mighty big hit, and even though G's birthday was five months ago, we still find the odd Bean under couch pillows and by floor boards.

Recently Garrett rediscovered one of his Beanz and was playing with it one night at bedtime. Actually, he was playing with the metal ball which had been removed from the Mighty Bean.

I was just about to tell him I didn't think it was a good idea to roll the ball on his face when suddenly,

"It was an accident! I swallowed it! I didn't mean to! It was an ACCIDENT!"

Many tears. Much anxiety and hysteria from Garrett. Equal parts annoyance and concern from Mom and Dad.

Mighty Bean ball with capsule and US penny, for scale.
And, no, this is not the ball in question.

Once we confirmed that, Yes, Garrett had swallowed the ball and, Yes, it had descended beyond his air passages, Karl and I got the boys to bed and consulted the internet.

Which, of course, is when everything gets scary.

Medical issues, especially those that present themselves late in the evening or the middle of the night, carry with them enough anxiety when you're on your home turf. But addressing them in a foreign country with an unfamiliar medical system ups the ante a notch or two.

Karl and Garrett have volleyed the Urgent Care ball back and forth this year. Karl's had shingles (a mild case, thank goodness, but it did hose our trip to Budapest) and a superficial blood clot (all better now!), and Garrett's experienced various aches and ailments which always present themselves after 8:30pm. One night he had a headache and was running a temperature of 102.5 degrees (fahrenheit, obviously) when he started complaining that his neck hurt.

Fabulous, we thought. Meningitis, anyone?

Here's where the internet can really freak you out. The Mayo Clinic's Web site had this helpful advice:

When to see a doctor
Seek medical care right away if you or someone in your family has signs or symptoms of meningitis, such as:

• Fever
• Severe, unrelenting headache
• Confusion
• Vomiting
• Stiff neck

Is it just me or is that a little too vague? I want to know: how high of a fever? Define "stiff neck." How many of these symptoms should be present to bundle the kid up and whisk him off to the ER?

But who am I to pooh-pooh these symptoms? Especially when the above is followed by:

Bacterial meningitis is serious, can come on very quickly and requires prompt antibiotic treatment to improve the chances of a recovery without serious complications. Delaying treatment for bacterial meningitis increases the risk of permanent brain damage or death. In addition, bacterial meningitis can prove fatal in a matter of days.

I added the bold for emphasis. Because that's how I read it.

What to do? Well, in the case of the headache/fever/neck pain, we sent out a bunch of emails to doctor friends at home before calling a local clinic and speaking with a very rational doctor who reassured me that she was 99 percent sure that Garrett was suffering from the flu, not meningitis, but then detailed the very specific signs that would necessitate getting him to a doctor. And then, for good measure, a pediatrician friend emailed back that she was home and available to Skype should we want to chat. (Thanks, L!)

(FYI, the neck pain has to be pretty severe, as in the child won't/can't touch his chin to his chest and screams in pain when the neck is touched. Fortunately we weren't anywhere close to that.)

Now, where was I going? Right -- Garrett and the Mighty Bean ball.

Many of the sites we consulted, like AskDrSears, were reassuring, but Patient.co.uk put me a bit on edge:

... Patients swallowing foreign bodies are usually asymptomatic but symptoms can result. It may even lead to life-threatening obstruction of the upper gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts.

Yikes!

Karl and I spent the next few days combing through his poop (ah, parenthood) in search of the culprit. Even though our internet sources said we should expect passage between 3 to 5 days, we started right away. (Hey, everyone thinks their kid is advanced, right? Also, prunes began to figure prominently at snack time.) Each time Garrett felt the urge coming on, we'd position a plastic strawberry basket in the toilet to ... make the catch.

Ball catcher, ready to step up to the plate.

There was no ball sighting by the time we headed out of town overnight on Friday, so we brought along all the exploration paraphernalia. Unfortunately it wasn't with us each time G felt moved to action. Friday night at a pizzeria, Karl secreted a stick into the bathroom to try discretely to examine the goods.

I caught his eye as he emerged from the bathroom, but he just shook his head. "Short stick. Deep well."

The next day we were back at the hostel (which friends of ours own -- they were with us at the pizzeria, so they got to hear the whole sordid tale) when Garrett neglected to tell us he needed to poop. So even though we had the necessary equipment, it wasn't in place. I got a longer stick which actually made contact with the evidence, but stuff was scooting down the drain and out of sight and soon the whole mess was so murky I couldn't see squat. So we chalked that one up as a loss, too.

Back here in Prague we were in full examination mode, to no avail. I was getting a little anxious, as one of the online sites said you should contact a doctor if the item had not emerged within a week. I was mentally composing a note to our doctor friends to ask how urgent this was (i.e. could we could wait until we got back from Paris to deal with this?) when an email from our friends at the hostel appeared in my inbox. The subject read:

You'll never believe ...

And the email:

what I found today!

After our weekend guests left, I was cleaning the bathrooms, and there in the bottom of the toilet in the small bathroom was a little metal ball. :-)

Phew! Thanks Tom and Cyndy!

And so on Wednesday, we left for Paris with clear consciences and bowels.

(For the record, the fantastic voyage of the Mighty Bean metal ball lasted from Wednesday evening until Saturday afternoon.)