Kids are so adventurous. They often aim to use the toys that illicit the highest amount of fear for a parent.
Stilts, electric scooters, and rollerblades- or in other words, all the things that seem to be a doctor visit in a box- are all on a thrill seekers wish list.
But sometimes it is the most innocuous toys that hold the greatest risk, like a doll’s fashionable accessories.
Katy and Michael Branson of Las Vegas were planning on having a date night, and had the sitter all lined up to watch their two girls one Saturday evening.
The evening was going according to schedule until their 3-year-old, Lucy, came upstairs coughing and seeming distressed.
After talking with their little girl, Michael says, “I think she has something up her nose,” Yahoo reports.
Upon examination it was discovered that Lucy had managed to shove not one, but two pink Polly Pocket shoes up her nose.
Why would anyone want to stick a pair of doll shoes up their nose? Lucy couldn’t explain it herself, but a mom would tell you, it’s because kids do things just to see what will happen.
With one shoe in each nostril- of course- the frantic parents tried to get her to blow the accessories out of her nose, but they wouldn’t budge.
A pair of tweezers, like a risky game of Operation, successfully removed one show, but the other one was so far up the tiny nostril it couldn’t be reached.
Michael and Katy had no choice but to take her to the doctors, where they tried removing the shoe with forceps, but to no avail.
The failed attempts prompted the doctor to suggest the emergency room, where the family ended up next- far removed from their Saturday evening Vegas Show for two.
In the emergency room a skilled physician was able to remove the second shoe in “less than a second,” as Michael recalled according to Yahoo.
This was not the doctors first rodeo, as one could imagine, but he did admit it was the first doll shoe he had extracted from a child’s nose.
Katy looked back on the whole event saying:
“All in all, it was an eventful evening. My husband makes it back, we go to the show, my daughter’s fine.”
All was thought to be well, just another night of parenting adventures, until…
A bill for the doll shoe fiasco came in the mail, and the Branson’s couldn’t believe their eyes!
“Total Bill: $2,658.98, consisting of a $1,732 hospital bill and a $926.98 physician bill,” reports Yahoo.
Almost $3,000 for a doll shoe extraction that took less than a minute of the doctor’s time?
This is why there are the scared mothers who wait until a sickness is really bad to take their children to the hospital, or why there are dads who insist on performing a quick in-home patch-work on a busted brow after baseball practice gone wrong.
Thankfully, the Bransons were able to get the physician’s bill cut in half after they agreed on a quick payoff, but the hospital was not as flexible or forthcoming about what their charges were actually for.
I’m sure that Michael and Katy had a serious talk with Lucy about the dangers of shoving foreign objects up your nose, but as a parent you are always subconsciously waiting for the next accident fueled by a precocious blend of curiosity and impulse.
Has your child ever had to have an item removed from their nose?
Please share with us in the comments section if you have had any interesting ER visits with your children, or if you have had an astronomical medical bill for a simple procedure.