Current affairs

Sometimes this thing writes itself.

At 8.45am on Wednesday I was feeling OK. Sure, the school bell rings at 8.55am, and we hadn't left the front garden (it has 3 rose bushes in it, ergo it is a garden and not merely a bit of paving the stops the house from bumping into the pavements) but we were outside the front door, I'd already extracted my bike from the bike shed and I hadn't forgotten my keys. We can do front gate to school in 7 minutes flat. This was running like clockwork.

Then Jonathan, looking slightly pained, told me he'd swallowed a battery.

I immediately rush off to get water, which he rapidly drains. He looks better.

I'm in the front garden. I have two boys. Fergus needs to be in school in 9 minutes. Jonathan's situation is unknown. I google "child swallowed battery" on my phone. It can, if it is lodged in his oesophagus, burn a hold in it. I am pretty sure that it is no longer in his oesophagus but no so sure I am willing to risk it.

Fergus gets his long cherished wish to walk to school on his own. I get him to the other side of our street, which is the most dangerous one to cross, and he skips off. I cross my fingers.

The Uber takes longer to arrive than any Uber has taken to arrive anywhere, ever.  On the plus side, there isn't any indication that a battery is burning a hole in Jonathan's oesophagus, or anything else.

I don't want to tell the drive that Jonathan has swallowed a battery in case he decides that means a 5 year old is about to throw up in his car, and turfs us out. Jonathan doesn't throw up. The Uber driver is friendly but not overly chatty, which is good, as my nerves won't take it.

The hospital is thankfully devoid of patients. Children's A&E is virtually empty. We are seen by a student nurse and a staff nurse. The staff nurse pulls out an airport-style hand-held metal detector (we clearly aren't the first, or even twenty-first). It beeps when she holds it to his stomach. For the time being, the oesophagus is safe.

The rest is tedious, but extremely kind and efficient. Jonathan is examined and has his temperature and pressure taken. A paediatrician is consulted. We are sent to X-ray. We sit there for a while, then get X-rayed, and returned to A&E. The paediatrician is re-consulted. The X-ray image is transmitted electronically and doesn't get lost, so everyone who needs to look at it can. There's the battery. Right there. Small intestine.

We are discharged with some laxative. I don't get anything. Not even gin. Despite protests Jonathan is back at school in time for lunch, and I am, somehow, in work by 1pm. Kate gets the pleasure of taking Jonathan back for another X-ray the next morning, to check that the battery is progressing through the intestine. It is. Slowly. Keep taking the laxative.

The end.