Three-Year-Old Swallows Gasoline and Winner of Bear Grylls Survival Bracelet

She was just siphoning gasoline from the car. She sucked several times on the black, rubber tube, pinching if off each time she sucked on it. She knew what to do. She swallowed the gasoline. Unhappy that she did not transfer it to a container, she sucked on the tube again and swallowed an even bigger mouthful. Finally, after a few minutes she decided that gasoline drinking was something she might need to tell her mother because it might make her sick.

 The family had company over, and she had pimiento and cheese sandwiches for lunch. She and her two-year-old brother went outside to play...in the car, something they had never done before. Inside was company, her parents and a baby sister. It is not clear why she siphoned gas until now. She was just doing something she had seen her father do earlier in the week. The children were playing "house" and this was just part of the game.

When I went to have the endoscopy, I remembered the wild ambulance ride, someone holding me down, hurting my side as the ambulance screamed toward the hospital. Once there, they held me down and pumped out my stomach. Lots of people held me down and forced a tube down into my stomach. My parents left me there, all alone in a crib.  This was the first time I had to be grown up. But, I did not want to be in a crib and begged for a bed.

(Daddy would not have stayed with me, nor would he have cared for two children, one that had to be changed and the other that he mistreated. So, don't judge my mother. She knew I would be safe. She had to keep the other two safe.)

One of the last things I told the nurses and doctor before the endoscopy on Tuesday was "make sure I know nothing. I do NOT want to know when you stick that down my throat." I told them about the stomach pumping...wonder if they cared?

Tuesday morning before the endoscopy, I awoke after no food since midnight. No problem. But, I had thirty minutes to drink Sierra Mist. They told me to do this since I was hypoglycemic. At 9 am, I quit drinking it. In thirty minutes my blood sugar had dropped and I was feeling the "stupids" and sort of stumbling about. I washed my hair. Exbf arrived and I whined lots about how awful I felt. Then, I apologized for not understanding what he was saying and for forgetting what he said thirty seconds before.

At 10:30 I called the doctor's office and told the nurses I was in trouble, that I could not make it until my expected arrival at the hospital at 12:30. They consulted the doctor. He said to go there immediately, and they would start an IV with sugar solution. It took me another thirty minutes to leave the house with wet hair.

I was so miserable, swiftly sinking further and further. Finally, they got me in my room, a miniscule room but adequate for what I was doing--lying there, waiting on the procedure, and hoping sugar would make me feel better.

The nurse told me to put the nightgown on. I forgot which way she wanted it to open. Exbf told me when I asked. So, I lay in bed, feeling like the room was turning, getting agitated even more, just like I do when my blood sugar falls so precipitously. I got up to use the bathroom and a nurse came into the room, giving me the code for anyone to reach me. As I pulled out my phone to call my daughter, give her the code and the phone number, two other nurses came into the room, all wanting me to do something. I was confused and my daughter could not hear me.

I raised my voice above the whisper exbf said I was using. She suddenly screamed at me, saying I was being dramatic, that I was "going to be OKAY." I started crying and she hung up. Way to go--make me feel like someone cares.

As I lay there, the nurse put the iv in the back of my hand without a shot to dull the extreme pain that site can have. I really hurt and tried to hold my hand still. I suppose I was still. I was still crying from my daughter. They started the iv, "full open so you will feel better." In five minutes, my blood sugar quit dropping. Even though I felt better, I was still confused.

Before I left home, I had packed my lunch box for exbf, a diabetic who will not spend money to go eat. Okay, he stayed so long that I suppose he would have, but I worry about him. I did not want him to get like he does when he does not eat when he should. One time, I saw him stumbling along, not able to keep his feet under him. Another time, he lay down in his recliner and lay there for 36 hours, missing work the next day, not answering the phone, and only roused when I sent the police for a welfare check. Soooo, I felt I had to take care of him.

At about 1 pm, he ate a peanut butter sandwich in front of me with the smell wafting to me, filling the room with something I could not have. Then, he drank a glass of milk. I was passing out, watching where the milk dribbled as he took off the Tupperware lid.  If I could have licked the Tupperware glass and still had the test, I would have. That fantasy danced in my feeble brain.  I managed not to say anything about his eating in front of me while I was starving.

About 2:40, I was wheeled to the operating room. I just talked a bit, asking questions. You know I would talk. My doctor came in and talked a bit. I told him about the stomach pumping and told him to please let me know nothing. The nurse had told me they would keep sedating me until I quit struggling. LOL

I was asked to turn on my left side. When I asked about what they were going to put into my mouth, wanting them to let anything hang out the right side instead of the left, she showed me. It was a little round, short, tube thing that I would hold between my teeth while they inserted the tube through it. They let me put it into my mouth when I asked. The nurse removed the iv and put something in the little thing still in my hand. It hurt like someone was stomping on my wrist. She remarked that it would sting a bit. NO, not stinging, quit standing on my hand. Then, the sting happened, a really big sting. I said something, but I don't know what.

And, I opened my eyes. The nurse said it was all over, that they were through. I thought maybe I would feel that something had been down my throat. I felt just like before the procedure was done.

Now, everything that happened is fuzzy. The doctor talked to me somewhere. Oh, yes, because he talked mostly to Tommy, it had to be back in my room. Then, they took out the iv thing. I got dressed but don't remember it. I asked Tommy questions over and over, asking him if I had asked him that before. "Yes, several times." Well, I could not remember.

Immediately, I asked for food before I got dressed, just as soon as they removed the thing from my hand. I was told I had gas in my stomach, and I had to wait until it was all out. Since I can belch on command, I did that for her. She said I still had to wait. Rats! I am starving. Finally, she brought me two little containers of oj and emptied them into a cup with a straw. How nice. Peanut butter crackers were delicious.  They were the best I ever had.  So, I asked for more. I shared one out of each pack with Tommy. He was reluctant, but I insisted. He opened the cold Pepsi that I put in the lunchbox, kept cold with a blue ice pack.

He had eaten the cherries and the one other thing I gave him while I was in for the endoscopy. He waited in the room for me instead of wandering off and was there when I came back. Okay, this is out of order. I think I put slices of cheese in the lunchbox. He did not eat the apple.

The doctor came in the room where we were, talked to Tommy and gave him a prescription for something like Postinix.  I do not have Barrett's esophagus as I feared. I just have several small lesions on my esophagus. I have lost the prescription, so I cannot say for sure what it is. At any rate, we took the prescription to the pharmacy and left to go eat at Ruby Tuesday.  My insurance would not pay for it, so we wasted a trip back to Walmart. We went someplace else, but I cannot remember where. My doctor can get the insurance company to approve the medication through some paperwork. ??? If I cannot find the prescription, I suppose the doctor can call it in.

I had made an appointment for 7 pm on Tuesday after the endoscopy with a rheumatologist, apparently, because Monday, the secretary reminded me. So, Tommy could not stay so late and bring me home because he had to go to work the next day. He had a doctor's appointment before he drove 65 miles to my house. I had him drop me off at the doctor's office, one block from my house. My neighbor agreed to come pick me up. I had not left the outside lights on, so I staggered in by flashlight about 9 pm, I think.

Tommy dropped me off, brought my car home, fed the hens and locked them in, and put my box of leftovers from the restaurant in the refrigerator, and left for home in his car.  Whew, what a day. I had the leftovers sometime very late that night.

When the rheumatologist/doctor came in I felt goofy, so I told him I had just been under anesthesia. We talked about my fibromyalgia. Then, he said, "So, tell me about your seizure." What? I have never had a seizure in my life.  "But, you just told me you had your first seizure.  Seizure? I said I had been under anesthesia! "Oh!"  So, I suppose I was not speaking plainly.

I left there with a thorough dressing down. It is a long story. But, I did get the paper for my handicapped tag.

The rest of Tuesday is a blur except for eating leftovers. On Wednesday, I was still stupid from the drop in blood sugar. No, I am not diabetic. I have reactive hypoglycemia.  Only on Wednesday night did I get in the car and drive.

Today, I had to go to the urologist for medication to stop the spasms and sharp pain when I urinate. I had already had 7 days of Cipro! Urine sample was clear. Today, the sharp pains were extending to my clitoris, not a good thing, not pleasant at all. So, my urine will turn orange. Oh, goody, goody!

Tonight, I baked the chicken I planned to cook after the endoscopy on Tuesday but had not thawed even if I had felt like cooking. And, tonight I cleaned at the disaster of the kitchen from two weeks of being ill with urinary tract infection, sinus infection and then the bladder spasms on urination and then just general pain  "down there." I will get in there and clean a bit more tonight after I post this.

I wish I had known exactly what was going to happen Tuesday instead of being surprised. I am a very good patient if I am told what will happen. Same with the dentist. Otherwise, I am a nervous wreck and not a good patient. Okay, the dentist said I am an excellent patient, but I don't feel like I am.

When I have the colonoscopy, the doctor will probably put me first on the schedule and put in an iv early. He wanted to do both tests this time, but I told him last week that I wanted to do one at a time. I do not regret that decision at all.

Oh, I had the ultrasound last week or sometime and there are no gallstones, nothing wrong with my liver or pancreas. So, why do I hurt so? Why do I feel like throwing up after one bite of food? Why does it seem like gall bladder, as the doctor remarked? I suppose he will tell me when I go back in a month.

I think the weather is to blame for my misery.

Oh, another detail of my siphoning gasoline. I had opened the trunk to remove the tube because I saw Daddy put it there. After an ambulance was called, my parents told them at which intersection we would wait for them. As Mama held me in the front seat while we drove, I showed her my little toe, how red it was from the gasoline running all the way down into my toe. "See, it has gasoline in it." I told her I was worried it was all over my body since it was making my little toe red. I knew gasoline burned and told her I hoped the gasoline did not burn up my toe. I remember that conversation. No one ever had to tell me what I said.

Winner of the Bear Grylls bracelet

I put all the names in a bowl, folded and mixed up.
I held it over my head, mixed again and picked one name.

And the winner is:

 

 

PaulaM S

 

Paula, email your physical address to me so I can contact the sponsor of the contest.



Your turn
Have you ever had the endoscopy? Ever drank gasoline? Ever had your stomach pumped out?