I re-earned my nick last night. 7pm, I get a call from home - I was an hour's drive away and would normally not be getting home for another 3-4 hours - but for an emergency, could be home in about an hour. Seems Keke's newly-pierced ear had swollen up and swallowed her earring. It was bleeding a little, but Bren got that stopped in short order while we were talking. so, after about 20 minutes of talking Bren thru an attempt at removing the jewelry, we decided to call a break. I had my cousin walk around and check on things after that. Long story short, Bren kept his head and calmed an almost-hysterical Keke down to the point she was ready to fix supper. +1 to him! After talking to my cousin, called home and told them to leave it alone so it wouldn't be irritated and tender when I got in to look at it.
Got in ~11pm. You couldn't see the earring from the front. Holy... that wasn't exactly what I was expecting! We went into field surgery mode, trying to push it back out - much screaming - pull it all the way thru - much MORE screaming at the mere thought - and just generally get it at least exposed, if not removed. Orajel makes a great topical anesthetic, btw. Well, Lonnie was hanging in there with us, worried about her sister and not wanting her sis to be without a comforter during a difficult time. Finally, sleep was getting to Lonnie and I asked Rebe to take her to her bed and snuggle her up real good.
At that point, I was able to get some real progress made. I could *almost* get the earring pushed forward thru the front of her ear like it should be - but the backing was in the way. Now, the working area was squirming and covered in orajel and wound seepage. Not an easy place to be! In the end, I used a pair of side-cutters to hold the post of the stud and a pair of flat-nose pliers to work the back off in two stages. That was the least painful part. I basically SAT on Keke and worked the post to line the setting up with the hole in the front and started pushing. JUST as the first tiny piece cleared the surface - covered in ... stuff, she starts wailing "I can't take any more, stopstopstop!" Now, earlier, we'd talked about it and I'd told her that once I got it lined up and started out, it was GONNA HURT. But that thing HAD to come out before she went to bed. She understood and agreed that once I had it started out, I couldn't afford to stop for anything short of severe trauma to her body. So when she started to squirm and scream she couldn't take any more, I just held her down with my body-weight and SHOVED on it until it slid free. I could tell the intense pain was gone, because she stopped screaming immediately, just lay there sobbing as I cleaned up her ear.
Rebe put a pair of small hoops in to replace the studs and as of today, the ear is slightly bruised around the piercing hole but has good color and no swelling. Bren says she has been very subdued and polite today. Wonder why.
Only thing I didn't have that the ER would have used was injectable lidocaine. And I had a functional workaround.
I finally got to bed at 2am+ and got up at 830am so I could take Rebe to work then go retreive her cellphone - which had gotten left behind the night before, so that was an hour trip each way. Now I gotta go pick her up in about 2 hrs. wheeeee.....
