June 6, 2003 - Friday
This afternoon we took Jeremy to the doctor's office. It was something of an emergency; that is, we called this morning and they said we'd better come right in. But, there wasn't really much anxiety about it. In fact, concern from Jeremy's mother's coworkers quickly gave way to jokes and derision when she explained that Jeremy's emergency appointment was to have a pea removed from his nose. Jeremy's doctor is always a very friendly man, but he was particularly jovial this afternoon, too, as was the nurse who helped hold Jeremy's head still as a pair of long surgical tweezers were inserted into his nose.

It all happened quickly. The doctor appeared quite adept at the operation, clearly the result of much experience (he rattled out a few of them - gummy bears, cheerios, lego( !?) - and said it happens all the time). Jeremy hardly knew what had happened and that's kind of too bad. I might rather have preferred having something extracted from his nose would have been an unpleasant memory that might dissuade it from happening again. Harry was in the room and I warned him, even tried to scare him a little, that Jeremy would probably cry. After all, having something PULLED FROM YOUR NOSE can't be very much fun. But, it was over too fast. There it was, last night's pea, green and round, on the end of the tweezers.

I don't know whether this policy has anything to do with easing the awkwardness or embarrassment of having a one's offspring, one's otherwise presumed prodigy, in such an unsavory state, but apparently there is no co-payment for having a foreign object removed from a child's nose.


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