Coffee bean

No, this post is not about The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf!

I was grinding coffee on the dining table after dinner last night and as usual, the two girls wanted to help aka kaypoh.  When Yiu Yiu almost spilled the container containing the ground coffee, I shooed them away and they retreated to the living room.  Not long after, Yan Yan started crying, and mumbled about something stuck in her nose.  By the time I managed to find the torchlight, she had quietened down so I was hoping that it was just a false alarm.  When I shone the torchlight into her nostrils, to my horror, I spotted a coffee bean in her right nostril.  Apparently Yiu Yiu snitched one to play and passed it to her mei-mei when she asked for it, and the little monster decided to shove it up her nose!!!

Luckily she was not in pain nor seemed to be distressed but when she heard that we would be taking her to the doctor, she was hysterical.  I offered to let her sit on my lap all the way to the hospital to calm her down.

On arrival, the nurse attended to us but she clung to me and refused to be checked.  The nurse managed to persuade her to let her (the nurse) peek into her nostril by bribing her with a sticker.  The nurse said they would probably need to restrain her when removing the coffee bean later so I was mentally bracing myself for the worst.  We were then told to wait for the doctor who was attending to another patient.  I tried to prepare her while waiting for our turn – I explained that the bean needs to be removed, otherwise a tree would grow out of her nose J  I told her I’ll be with her, and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

She was pretty composed while we waited but started panicking when we went into the treatment room.  The nurse had lain the restraining straps on the bed, and covered it up with a piece of cloth but she refused to lie down so we had no choice but to force her down and bundled her up, much like being swaddled like a newborn.  

 This was the closest picture I could find to illustrate how she was restrained during the procedure.

She must have been terribly terrified L  She was screaming her lungs outs while I tried to calm her down for the doctor to be able to “hook” the bean out from her nose.  At some points, she stopped struggling and quitened down, probably because she didn’t feel any pain when the metal apparatus was inserted into her nose, before fear gripped her and she started struggling and screaming again.  The whole ordeal lasted probably 2-3 minutes, before the bean was successfully dislodged from her nostril and she was freed from the restrainer.  Thereafter, she hung on tight to me like a koala bear, until we rewarded her with 100 Plus, which she requested earlier while we waited for our turn.  She was back to her usual cheeky self not long after.  And said to me, “Mummy, tomorrow (she uses tomorrow to describe the future) I don’t want to put anything in my nose already.”  I'm just so glad it didn’t lead to anything serious, and she’s learned her lesson.

The offending bean