The coin that Neve swallowed turned out to be a five cent piece as opposed to the one euro she claimed she’d ingested.
Yes, it was horrible and it went a bit like this. Yesterday, after lunch, Isa and I collapsed on the sofa to watch the rest of The Artist while the kids were in bed starting their afternoon nap. I was packed and ready to go and catch my 22:30 flight for which I’d need to leave the house at 8pm. We were tired and emotional, looking forward to a quick siesta as well. Lola and Neve were not settling down. Laughter and chat was getting louder and then took on a more plaintive tone. I went in to tell them to quiet down and found Neve standing near the door and Lola in bed. Neve was a bit distressed and Lola told me she’d swallowed a coin. We quickly took Neve into the kitchen to asses her. She was upset and crying and obviously in some discomfort. There was a brief period (a few seconds) of gagging but she started to settle down quite quickly and was able to drink some rice milk. As she could breath OK and could swallow her drink, we assumed that she swallowed the coin and that we would have to wait for it to be excreted. (A check with Google and BMJ resources confirmed that no internention was recommended in these cases and that the coin would make its way out in one to four weeks.) I calmed Isa, who was wondering about taking her to A&E, and we decided to keep her at home. As she was still pretty sleepy, we put her back to bed and she slept. We went in after twenty minutes and she was sleeping peacefully, so Isa and I went for a quick nap, too.
Within an hour of falling asleep, I woke to find Isa gone and the sound of Neve crying inconsolably with discomfort. I was exhausted and couldn’t wake easily. As such, I was far from a calming influence when I went into the kitchen to find Nonna calling a doctor and a very distressed Isa with an equally distressed Neve. Neve was drooling a fair bit and crying in pain — the kind of locked-in crying that is extremely hard to read and communicate through. I was slow and silent, not properly on-line; Isa was high-speed and panicked. It’s a common response and hard for us to overcome. But we did and within 15 minutes were on our way to Pronto Socorso with Claudio. Neve didn’t want to go and was screaming, “No! No!” as we drove off–though she had calmed down by the time we reached the end of the drive. At this point, our working assumption was that she had bruised or scratched her throat and that this was the cause of the distress.
We got to PS between six-thirty and seven. (A very impressive PS with an enclosed ramp leading right to the door for drop off, continuing down to the car park. The building was extremely clean, air-conditioned, and with an impressive traige system linked to large LCS screens around the waiting areas.) A couple of fantastic male nurses took our details initially and tended to agree that the coin would be in her stomach (as she had no trouble breathing) and we would just have to wait for it to come out. They put us in line for a paediatric doctor, giving us a “green” label. After about a half-hour wait, Isa, Neve and I were called through to see the doctor. The nurse and doctor were also both lovely. We had a quick chat and the doctor agreed it was probably in her stomach. The nurse had a child who had also swalled a coin, and that had been expelled naturally. The doctor, who looked to be in his twenties and also spoke some English, wanted to feel Neve’s stomch but Neve got very distreed and wouldn’t let him. No worries, said the doctor and sent us off for a routine X-ray.
More waiting in Radiography and then I stayed outside while Isa went in with Neve. More waitng and then the doors opened and I found out that the coin was in fact stuck right at the top of her throat. I asked the radiographer if it was in the oesophagus or the trachea, and he said you couldn’t tell from the X-ray–it seemed to be around epiglottis height–but that he expected the oesophagus as there were no respitory symptoms.
Yet more waiting in Radiography, during which the lovely triage nurse happened past and stopped briefly to chat. He’d heard about the X-ray result and said he’d try to get something for Neve to play with. He came back in a couple of minutes with a couple of plastic figurines for her–a princess and a little dog. Neve was delighted and played with them until the nurse came to take us back to the doctor. She was making up stories and songs for them, running around and singing: it was great to see, though I had to ask her not to jump up and down as I was worried she’d dislodge the coin.
By the time the doctor spoke to us it was nearly eight and I was getting pretty anxious about having to leave to catch my flight. I wanted to wait to see what they planned to do before I left. The doctor said that they would get a specialist up to use a short tube to look down her throat and, assuming there were no complications, to pull the coin out (jaws on the end of an endoscpe, I guess). Maybe, he said, a gastroenterologist would be required to take a deeper look.
So I took a difficult and tearful goodbye of Isa and Neve and went to find Claudio. We got home just after half-eight. I was anxious. All the family were there. I rushed around double-checking my bags, packing the stuff that was in the fridge, trying to grab a few mouthfuls of food, and trying to explain all that was going on. Lola, thankfully, was very happy and playing with Stefi. Isa rang and said that they were going to give Neve a general anaesthetic and try to remove the coin, and that she would be kept in for two days. While attempting to digest this, I jumped in the car with Renzo, Stefi and Lola and we set off to the airport.
I explained what was happening to Lola and she understood and was happy that everything was OK. I checked in my bag and joined the queue for security, chatting to Lola all the while. I asked Stefi if she or Giada could stay with Lola that night, as it might be hard for her with just Nonna. As the queue receded, I said my goodbyes. Lola went off looking a bit folorn and I carried on through the system. After security had discovered it was only cibo in my hand luggage (the jokey lady telling me what a feast they’d have had with all the cheese and salami and coffee), I joined a long queue for gate four. Which I where I was still at twenty past nine to say that Neve had gone into theatre. By ten o’clock, we’d gone through customs and I was sitting waiting at the gate when the text came through to say the coin was out without complication and that Neve was out and sleeping.