Don't ever hold a pin between your lips..... Just don't!

One night my step daughter is pinning up a brides maid dress she has made for me, cause she's really clever and can sew, for real. I have my back to her and she's pining the hem. All of a sudden she sneezes........ I think nothing of it, but then she says 'Rexxxxxxx I swallowed the pin'  I turn to her and say 'what?' ...... I am thinking fast..... What does this mean...? I say, 'it's ok it will just come out, after it passes through, it will be ok........' 


THEN, she says, 'noooooo I thinks it's gone the other way....' I look down at her widening brown eyes and can see the panic rising in her shocked pale face. Then I feel that panic in my own chest. So I lie, lie and lie. I say..... 'It cant go that way, so it will be fine" ........ Her younger sister starts to have the same wide eyed look too, only with her blue eyes widening at me........ Holy shit! 

Wayne is at night school an hours drive away! No mobile, nothing. What to do? I faff Round trying to find numbers to contact him, I can't. Finally I phone the hospital to talk to some one, and work out what I am going to do, she's not in pain and can breath just fine. But bloody hell, a pin inhaled in her lungs!!!!! Shit! 

They are out with us on their weekly visit and their 5 year old brother is asleep. I am thinking ambulance, but we have to phone her mother, she's in town half an hour away! Damn!  


I phone her then phone the ambulance. It's agonizing waiting for the Ambo, don't breath Cass, don't move, don't talk. I chant to her and in my head. When the ambulance comes I send her sister with her and their mother meet's them at the hospital. 


Hours later Wayne returns home and I am pacing in the driveway, in the dark. He takes one look at me and knows, he actually left his class early cause he had a weird feeling. We exchange a few words and he loops around the driveway and out again. I start to breathe,  cause Wayne's a man that can make you feel like everything is going to be fine, in any crisis you can imagine. He will calm all of them. Its the most amazing gift. 


It's a sleepless night of course and I wait for calls in the lounge, hours later wayne calls, they have to take her 2 hours away to another hospital with the appropriate specialists. After driving halfway there at 60 km an hour they have to stop and wait for another ambulance for 2 hours that have better experienced ambo officers. Cassie's mum rides with her in the ambulance and Wayne drives behind in the car with the window down slapping himself silly the rest of the way, as fatigue sets in. They arrive early morning, and there is a fair bit of discussions about options. The pin is sitting just on the very edge of the opening into her lungs...... Don't move cass. 


After Wayne phones and tells me this, I am in a complete state, they are putting her under, so they can attempt to carefully extract it with a clever long clamped thing. But if they drop it or knock it, it's a scar down the center for cass with a big op.  


I wait and wait. Eventually they phone and they have managed to get that Goddamn pin out of her, just. The surgeon actually dropped it but caught it again. 


Cass comes out of her anesthetic, and apparently says really inappropriate, and hilarious things to her mum, which makes us all laugh, much later. 


It was a close call.


That was on the wednesday, and the wedding was on the saturday and like the trooper she is she finished the dress and still came to the wedding!




So don't ever hold a pin between your Goddamn lips, ever!


ok? okay.

Blue eyed girl on the left and the brown eyed pin inhaler on the right
with little bro in the middle. At the wedding!

P.S Cassie if you can remember those really inappropriate things you said, it would be cool if you could share them, cause we can't, Damn it!