Wednesday, August 15, 2007

It was a pawn

We've had a busy week. We are hosting again a homeschool family who is in town to get medical treatment for their 16 month old son. He had surgery at a hospital near their home, but developed complications. They brought him to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital where he has been a patient for the last week.

Unrelated to his other medical issues, his mother became concerned that he kept gagging and spitting up mucus. His mother pushed for days to have a scope done of his esophagus. Finally, the hospital relented and did the test. The technician was shocked to find what looked like a watch battery stuck in his esophagus. Later that day, surgery revealed that it was a magnetic chess piece from a travel game set. The mother called to tell me the results and wanted me to pass along the information to her other children. She said, "Tell the boys it was the pawn."

The baby is recovering and will be going home soon.

2 comments:

Willa said...

My sixth son almost went to Lucile Packard for his liver transplant. He ended up going to UCSF instead. A few years later when he was at the hospital for further surgery, his younger brother who was about 16 months old at the time swallowed a penny! He eventually did pass it through his system. Your story brought back the memory : ). Glad the little one was OK.

Janine Cate said...

Wow. A transplant is a big deal.

As a follow up, my friend told me that the doctors were quite amused to find it was a chess piece.

They made comments like, "Isn't he a little young to play chess?" and "We looked for the bishop and queen while we were there."