Nasal Mystery

For some reason, once our formal school year is over, everything seems to fall apart for us, health-wise, and we end up making a ton of trips to Bethesda, even though we've hardly made any the whole rest of the year.  Last year is was Jonathan's big lump of infection on his head after camping, and then his Lyme disease.  This year we've had the bout with strep, as well as Jonathan's reaction to the antibiotics, and Drew's infected finger.

I thought we were out of the woods, but then another . . . issue . . . came to our attention.  Micah smelled funny.  When we were packing up from camping, I noticed that his pillow (a penguin Pillowpet) smelled bad.  Well, I couldn't remember the last time I washed it, and we had just been camping, so it got washed.  But it still smelled, so it got washed a second time.

Eventually we noticed that it was more than his pillow.  Micah himself just sort of smelled off.  We couldn't pinpoint exactly where it came from, but I encouraged more showers, better potty hygiene, better teeth brushing, more use of mouthwash, etc.  Yesterday we were swimming in the pool, and Micah was around me.  I could smell this smell, and I realized that we were in a pool, for Pete's sake--all I should have been able to smell was chlorine!  What on earth was causing this smell?!?  As I was helping him brush his teeth, it finally dawned on me that the smell was actually coming from his nose--every time he exhaled, it smelled so foul. It had definitely gotten worse over the past 3 weeks, and now you couldn't avoid noticing the smell if you were anywhere near him, and he breathed out!

I googled "bad smell from nose", and the main thing that came up was a sinus infection.  But Micah wasn't running a fever, or having copious amounts of nasty green snot, or any other symptom of any sinus infection I've ever known.  I went ahead and made an appointment for 11:00 this morning.

The pediatrician was pretty sure Micah had a "foreign object" in his left nostril.  She couldn't clear out the nostril to see better, so she sent us over to ENT.  After waiting quite awhile, a resident called us back.

She set Micah up in this fancy chair, inserted a "nasal speculum" into his nostril (did you even know there was such a thing?), put on a head lamp, and peered inside.  She felt like there was something in there as well, so she got this suction tube.  First she put on a small nozzle thing, but that didn't work, so she went to the larger nozzle.  That also didn't work, so she asked for these long "nasal tweezers".  Then she pulled out this . . . thing:

It was a piece of foam, about 1 1/2 inches long!  It looked like delivering a small baby from his nose, lol.  Micah was remarkably cooperative during this whole procedure, but after she pulled it out, his nose started bleeding, which freaked him out, although we got it stopped quickly.  

So as we were making our follow-up appointment for 2 weeks from now, Micah asked me, "Mom, how did that big piece of foam get all the way up into my nose?"  Ummm, yes--that is the question of the hour!  I guess it will remain a mystery, because if Micah himself has no clue, then I doubt anyone else will be able to figure it out either!  I can't believe he didn't feel that something was up there, but he never once complained about anything.  He did tell the doctor that he had been having headaches kind of above his nose.  Also, we had noticed that he had started snoring.  Well, no wonder, with his left nostril almost clogged by a huge piece of foam!  I've been wracking my brain for where whitish foam is.  Caleb mentioned the foam pit at gymnastics, but Micah hasn't been to a foam pit for a long time--months, for sure.  I do think he must have fallen into foam, though.  Micah has never been one to stick things up his nose deliberately, and if he had noticed something go up his nose, I think he would have been alarmed and told me!  But I guess it will remain unsolvable.  I will say, regardless of where the foam came from, I am SO GLAD that it is out!  Micah already smells way better!  I will be quite happy if I never have to smell that particular smell again.  It reminded me of what I smelled like when I had my uterine infection after Drew's birth.  Learn something new every day, that's for sure.