Jay Versus The Tic Tac

Have you ever wondered how common it is for children to get foreign objects stuck in their ear? Well, last Friday we found out, after Jay, our son, decided to put a Tic Tac in his ear. Apparently it’s very common, even for 7 year olds who should know better.

Let’s go back a moment to Friday morning before it happened. My wife, SO, and I had taken the day off. SO was at home because her Mother and Sister were her for a couple of days so her Mother could see her Doctor. I, on the other hand, had an appointment to get injections for my Torticollis, which I’ve talked about here.

So off I went and got 21 injections, I counted them, in the muscles of my neck and shoulders. If you’re wondering, yes it does hurt, much more than normal injections which aren’t into the muscles themselves.

It was while I was getting the injections, literally at the same time, that Jay decided to see what it was like to stick a Tic Tac into his ear. It was his right ear, if you were wondering, although why it would matter I don’t know. But then, we do tend to wonder about things that don’t really matter, don’t we?

Anyway, SO found out that he’d put it in there, and could see it sitting in his ear, just a bit to far in for her to safely remove. Fortunately, our local Doctor is less than a 5 minute walk away. Unfortunately, he was closed at that time.

So then I get a call while on my way home, with the full intention of resting in bed all afternoon because my neck was sore from being a pin cushion and containing an extra 300 units of BOTOX in my muscles. And no, it doesn’t remove any of my wrinkles, it’s inside the muscles to make them relax, and to far away from the surface to have any cosmetic effect.

On getting home I had a look and, yes, could see the Tic Tac sitting there in Jay’s ear nice and snug like a bug in a rug. So, being the take charge kind of guy I am, I flipped a coin to decide whether or not to take him to the emergency room. Okay, I didn’t really flip a coin, but SO and I did decide to take Jay to the emergency room instead of waiting for our local Doctor to return from his mid day break, where, I found out later, he was taking a nap. I didn’t make that up, I actually talked to him the next day and he admitted he was taking a nap.

So, off we went to the children’s emergency at NUH (Singapore’s National University Hospital), which is about a 5 minute taxi ride away. Fortunately it wasn’t terribly busy day and we got in to see a Doctor in less than half an hour. She was very kind to Jay and that made him relaxed and okay with having to be there. She was only an intern though, so she had to get a fully trained Doctor to try to remove the Tic Tac. She did tell us it’s extremely common for kids to get things stuck in their ears and she’s seen plenty of cases. This was the first time it was a Tic Tac though, so at least Jay was unique in that way.

The head Doctor though, didn’t have any instruments that could get into his ear and remove it. He did try several different things first but none of them could get it since the Tic Tac had swollen and blocked the canal and he couldn’t get a firm grip on it to pull it out. So off they sent us to the ENT clinic.

The worst part of this was that we ended up having to wait over an hour to see someone there. I guess this was because it wasn’t really an emergency, the Tic Tac wasn’t causing any damage and Jay wasn’t feeling any pain or discomfort. Unless you count embarrassment as a pain or discomfort.

Once we got to see someone it only took a couple of minutes to get it out. As much as I never wanted it to happen and definitely don’t want him to do anything like it again, I think it’s given him a good lesson and I doubt he’ll ever try putting things in his ear again. The staff at the hospital were kind and patient with him and I don’t think he’s been adversely effected by the episode.

On the other hand I now find I have a strange desire to put a Tic Tac in my ear just to see what it’s like.