Josh and Becca Thrap and Family

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The kids and I got to Wayland just in time for lunch with my mom and aunt Jan and cousin Byron. Shortly after lunch aunt Jane and cousin Jesse arrived also! We had a nice visit and then left Elena to begin her week of “Grandma Camp” while I went on after the cake and then home. On the way home we stopped in Coralville and the kids and I had dinner with Kate Wheeler to celebrate her new job. Thursday, our actual anniversary, local family came over for dinner, cake, and Singstar!

It was a great day, unfortunately just before bed Josh dropped the cake trying to get it back into the refrigerator, so he felt really badly about that. Friday, Josh had quarterly meetings all day at work and in the evening his youngest brother Steven came to watch the older kids so that Josh and I could attend the company awards dinner at which Josh was presented not only his 5 year award (even though he has now been with the company for 6 full years) but also an award for training and development that his peers nominated him for. After the dinner and awards ceremony, Josh introduced everyone to the joys of Singstar. He gave a good show and even got his boss to sing a few rounds! Around the time the majority of the crowd had dissipated and the Singstar was really taking off our evening took an unexpected turn. Josh, who has a bad habit of pulling the tabs off of his pop cans and then putting them inside the can, took a big gulp of his diet Mt Dew Code Red and ended up with a pop top in his throat! It apparently lodged near his gag reflex and he dashed off to the bathroom to vomit. of course everyone else was still playing and had no idea what had happened and he would periodically return to sing for his turn and then dissappear again. After about a half an hour of vomitting, and singing his team to victory, the party came to an end and Josh finally ‘fessed up about what was going on. I called Steven to make sure he could stay with the kids and I drove Josh down to the hospital in Des Moines. Just after taking this picture the ER doctor arrived and said “Well, this should be fun! …For me anyway.” Then he took Josh off to be x-rayed. Unfortunately the x-rays didn’t show anything and so Josh and I waited some more in our room with the door open and very thin walls while the ER doctor asked around if anyone had a can of pop so he could try to x-ray just the tab to see just how it might look in an x-ray–apparently they really don’t show up! So, for the next step in our adventure, a friendly nurse came in to give Josh a gown and an IV. Of course we didn’t know why. The poor woman tried to put the IV in the top of his hand to avoid taping up any seriously hairy part of his body, but the tubing just wouldn’t go in so she had to move up to his elbow at which point she exclaimed “Oh my! You are a bleeder!” Apparently she had no trouble getting in there, but Josh’s blood had just gushed out down his arm, all over the floor and on her shoe. Then we found out that an ears, nose, and throat specialist had been called to come in and take a look at Josh. Of course by now it was almost 2 in the morning. So we waited some more, Josh in his little gown, and me cramped into a small corner on a very uncomfortable chair between Josh’s hospital bed and a large open cabinet of supplies. While we waited we were regaled with tales from the neighboring rooms about an older woman with blood in her stool and very little control and a poor girl who was just sobbing over an especially bothersome UTI, and then of course the doctors and nurses who were still occasionally talking about the guy with the pop tab stuck in his throat! We were definately the novelty act that night. Anyway, when the other doctor arrived we gave ANOTHER medical history which he wrote down on a paper towel and we finally learned what their next plan of action was. Josh was to be rolled into surgery where they would put him to sleep under general anesthetic and then given an air tube so he could breathe while the doctor scoped his esophagus. The nurses in surgery all wore funny shower caps and they gave Josh one too. So, about 2:45 am Josh was taken into surgery and I was sent with a bag full of his clothes and his wedding ring on my pinky down a long hallway to a waiting room called the USS Recovery! The room was covered in sea features. There was an acquarium on one wall and the other walls all had pictures of fish or naked babies underwater like the Nirvana album cover. The lamp looked like a lighthouse, but all the lights were off and I was alone and I was exhausted so I tried to find a way to lie down. I tried the floor but it was incredibly hard and I had no pillow so I kept looking. There was a large wooden “ship” in the corner of the room that had a bench along the backside for children to play on so I considered that, but was afraid that the doctors would not be able to find me when Josh was done if I fell asleep back there. I tried several awkward positions on a loveseat that might have been 3 feet long and seemed like my best bet, but they all proved impossibly uncomfortable and so after a long while I decided to go find a bathroom. On my walk I found a little pillow so after using the bathroom I took the decorative pillow and headed back toward the fishy room. Back in the waiting room I stood just looking at the loveseat trying to problem solve when I noticed out one of the windows in the room that there was a wing-back chair in the lobby just outside the waiting room so I thought perhaps that might be more comfortable. When I got to the chair I found that right next to the chair but just around a corner so I’d not seen it before was in fact a full-length couch! So, about 3:20 am I finally laid down to rest and just as I closed my eyes a huge door that I’d not noticed RIGHT next to me opened loudly and the doctor came out and said that Josh was finished and fine and still just waking up and that the nurse would come and get me in just a few moments. He did NOT however find the pop tab! So about ten minutes later I went back and helped Josh get dressed and we still had no real answers and now of course his throat REALLY hurt from all the tubes they had shoved down it, but they seemed satisfied that he was in no more danger and just sent us home. By the time we got home it was alomst 4:30 am and poor Steven who I assume was trying to be a cool uncle had been up basically the whole time too because Jacob was still up! BUt we have a new house rule and I suggest you all consider the same “No removing the tabs off pop cans!” You never know where they’ll end up! We still don’t know where it is!

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