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                             Cliff hanger, Part II
                                        
Today was spent at The Hospital.

Not The Hospital whose Emergency Room [1] I dropped The Younger off at. No.
That Hospital does not have a pediatric section, so The Younger was
transported to a different Hospital during the wee morning hours.

Now, since Spring [2] has already mentioned one reason why he's there [3], I
no longer have to dance about the issue of The Younger swallowing two kitchen
magnets.

Magnets.

Yes, plural.

Now, as kitchen magnets go, these are tiny. Think of a push pin, one used to
tack notices up to a bulletin board, but instead of a metal pin sticking out
of it, it has a small round magnet to hold it to a refridgerator. We're
talking something about 1/8″–1/4″ across.

And he only swallowed the magnet part, not the push pin part. Just the magnet
part.

It was suggested by the doctors last night that The Younger might have pica
[4] which is a persistent craving for non-food like items.

Oh, and he also got a stomach flu, as if things weren't bad enough.

So anyway, today was spent at The Hospital.

The Younger was sent through X-ray enough times that he no longer needs a
nightlight and the reason for the multiple X-rays throughout the day was to
track the movement of the two magnets [5]. The concern was if the two magnets
attract each other in different parts of the intestines and lodge themselves
against the intestine wall. Fortunately, the X-rays showed that not only
where they progressing down his system, but they had already attracted to
each other and travelling as one unit if I understood it correctly.

So, once the magnets are flushed from his system, The Younger can then return
back home.

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2006/01/11.1
[2] http://www.springdew.com/
[3] http://www.livejournal.com/users/springdew/394438.html
[4] http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/behavior/pica.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmiwinks

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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