There once was a young boy who swallowed a battery

It was a Friday morning around 6am when my 7 year old Mason was annoying me with how much energy he had already (ironic) so I told him to go wake his brother so we could start our morning and make it to the bus stop by 7am.

Bracing myself for the screams from Kaeden telling his brother to get out of his room I was surprised when Mase returned back to my bed. As I tried to find the energy to get out of bed(maybe my battery was low) Mase mentioned casually that he had a battery in his tummy. Taking a few moments for his sentence to register in my brain I asked him to repeat what he said even though I was pretty certain I got it the first time.

I thought he’s obviously mistaken or joking so I casually continued to ask him Changing up my wording to see if I could trip him up but every time he returned the same answer. I know what you’re thinking *panic*

But I must admit it was such an odd and strange thing to have supposedly happened that I still wasn’t convinced. I went and grabbed two batteries which were different sizes and asked him which one and he pointed to the AA and says ‘like this one’

Yeah that wasn’t the answer I was after.

Still feeling like it’s not really what has happened I still knew I had to act like it had just incase.

I then tried to scare the truth out of him (interrogation style like I’d seen on NCIS) by telling him he’d need a needle if he really did swallow a battery. That back fired because he then became really upset about the needle but still said there was a battery in his tummy so I then just had a hysterically crying 7 year old with a suspected battery inside of him which could be giving him the energy to cry all day for all I knew.

So off we went to emergency to ‘take a photo of your tummy then go to school’ is what I told him. In my mind we were just making sure there was nothing there then I’d drop him to school and I could enjoy my day off.

Sure enough we are sent straight to X-RAY where I stand next to the screen that the X-RAY picture is displayed.

Before the technician even turned her head to look at the screen after clicking the button I had gasped and thrown my hands up to my mouth to muffle the sounds of me saying ‘oh my god, oh my god’. I point to the image of my 7 year olds boney little body and said ‘there’s a battery in his stomach, shit, there’s really a battery in his stomach’

I had been wrong. Boy did I feel like a giant clown( not the kind of clown that you have at a kids party because they rock at making balloon animals. The clown that the other clowns play tricks on like making them sniff their lapel flower that squirts them in the eye with water)

He really did swallow a battery. How?? How on earth did my kid who refuses to even eat breakfast manage to swallow a battery?

Sure you won’t have a piece of toast but you’ll happily help yourself to a battery!!

We had to go back to emergency to tell them that he really has swallowed one as to my defence the triage nurse had not thought it was true either.

I wasn’t going to line back up because in my eyes my son had just ingested a grenade that was going to explode at any minute.So I just kind of blurted it out for everyone to hear. It went something like this. ‘He really did!! It looks like a AAA!!!!’

The line of people at the front desk turned and looked at me and battery boy with a variety of surprised and impressed facial expressions. One lady picked her jaw up from the ground and said ‘oh my god, impressive’

Yes lady impressive. Impressive that at his age I couldn’t even swallow tablets but he has passed that stage and has moved on to batteries.

We were extremely lucky that it was safe to leave and let it pass naturally..naturally? There’s nothing natural about that.

As much as I did enjoy thinking up as many battery related jokes that could (‘at least if I sold him I could say batteries included’ was my fav)

We were pretty relived that after the third day a beautiful healthy AAA was born.

Now when I gag while trying to take my large Swisse multi vitamin I’ll remember that if my son can down a battery without a chaser..I’ve got this.

In all seriousness batteries are extremely dangerous especially button batteries.

Keep them out of reach of kids.

Now we have a great story for his 21st and a great pic for his photo board.

BB

Xxx