How to Turn a Dime Into $100

Today started out as pretty much a normal day. Nobody wanted to wake up and go back to school and work after spending time off for Thanksgiving. Despite the temptation to stay home and just sleep, I managed to get up and head off to work. I had been at work for about an hour when I one my co-workers, interrupted my class. She had a "While You Were Out" phone message for me. This struck me as strange, since normally I just return any calls after instruction time. She had a weird expression on her face as she told me, "It's about your son, you might want to step outside to read this." Of course I read it right away. The message was from the school nurse at my son's school. The message said, "Dime stuck in his nose!"

After initially bursting out in laughing in front of my room, I composed myself and asked if the message was real. After being assured the message was real, I got on my cell phone to find out my beloved wife had been trying to reach me, and had left a voice message. My wife's voice message confirmed, what the phone message said, my son had a dime stuck up his nose. The nurse had tried to get it out, but she was afraid because it was stuck up there pretty good, that it might have caused some minor damage to his nose, and she recommended we take my son to a Doctor, or the E.R. to have it removed. To bad my wife was already taking some time off to take my daughter to the orthodontist. So I had to go show the note to the program director and ask for the rest of the day off. If the situation wasn't happening to my own kid, it would have been hilarious. Ok, it was hilarious anyway, but I really didn't want to miss work.

By the time I got permission to leave, my beloved wife had already picked up the kid from his school. I took him to our family doctor where we spent about 10 minutes waiting to see if the doc can work him in to his already busy schedule. Since it was not an "emergency", he could not work my son and his 10 cent booger into the schedule. Meanwhile my son is worried he is going to snort the dime into his nasal cavity and swallow it, or choke on it. So we left the doctor's office and went to the E.R. After much paper work and another 10 minute wait, the doctor finally saw my son. She told him, that they could try to use high air pressure and blow the coin out or they could try to pull it out. He opted to have it pulled out. (Darn it, I really wanted to see the dime fly out his nose and roll across the floor!) After failing a good grip on the coin, they told us they might have to send him to a specialist and they might have to put him under anesthesia to pull it out. This scared my son and he started to "blow his nose" over and over again. By the time the nurse returned, the dime and finally slipped down enough that you could see it again. They gave my son a pair of small pliers and he pulled out the dime for himself. (I think they ought to give us a discount on the bill for that!) He thought it was funny that they put the dime in a Bio-Hazard bag because of the snot and mucus on it. It would have been more funny to me, if it wasn't for the $100.00 co-pay this will cost us, after insurance. For a 10 cent problem, it cost us 10 times as much to have it removed. It also cost me a day of my sick-leave.

You always hear about stuff like this happening to other people's kids! I guess my wife and I are just one of those "other people" after all. At least I got the rest of the day off after all. Oh, by the way -- He was trying to do some sort of magic trick for his friends in P.E. Some trick boy!

For my son's version of this story Click Here! For my wife's version of the story Click Here!