Sticker Shock

I was sitting in Sunday School yesterday enjoying a wonderfully prepared lesson on the apostle Paul and his ministry when there was a LOUD knock at the door. This is one of those moments when you secretly whisper to yourself, "Please don't let it be my kid." Someone in the back said aloud to the teacher, "Are you expecting someone?" We all giggled. I joined in on the giggling until it was my kid that was let into our classroom. I stood up and said, "Well, that wasn't embarrassing, was it?" I escorted Josh out into the hallway to see what the matter was. He declared, "Jack (his friend) put a sticker in my ear!" No big deal, right? I took a look and low and behold, there was a sticker in his ear shoved so far back that I knew this was going to take a professional to remove it. I had a panic moment. I was at church alone with my kids this week because Jeremy was out of town with some of his buddies. What was I going to do with my kids? I certainly didn't want to take them with me to a doctor's office. I decided to ask help from a friend that I had to be sitting by in Sunday school. My friend happened to be Jack's mom. I pulled her out into the hall and told her of my dilemma. Being the good woman she is, she agreed that if I wasn't back to church in time, she would take my kids--after all, it was her kid that put the sticker in Josh's ear. I ran home and called my pediatrician's office and was connected to the on-call doctor. An appointment was made for later in the afternoon, but with these words: "Try and get the sticker out yourself." Hum. I told them how far back the sticker was wedged but they told me to try anyway. So we tried and failed. So Josh and I went back to church. Josh came to Relief Society with me. During one of the comments a woman let it be known that she was a nurse. I had a light bulb moment: "She can get the sticker out!" I talked with her after church and she introduced me to another person in our ward that is a physician's assistant. I asked him if he had spent any time fishing things out of people's ears. He smiled and said, sure come on over right after church. However, even with his expertise, he didn't have all the right equipment to get the sticker out. So off to the doctor we went. Jeremy was home by this time and said he could get it out using his surgical suction at work. Enough is enough. I knew we had better take Josh to the doctor. After an hour of trying to flush it out with a syringes full of water and a couple of different types of tweezers, the sticker finally emerged! Take a look at the pesky thing:

The doctor said it had been pushed back all the way to Josh's eardrum. It was quite tender for Josh. He wasn't happy during the extraction of the sticker. All that trouble. The sticker had been folded several times to make it so small. Once it was in his ear, the sticker unfolded thus making it so tricky to get out. At this time I would like to thank the primary person that was so kind in handing out Halloween stickers in primary yesterday and to Jack for putting it in Josh's ear. Not to mention Josh who probably helped push it so far back into his ear. Who knew that by doing that they would provide an afternoon of stress and adventure not to mention the fact that I got to meet a couple of more people in the ward!