Circular to Square

This post is about an incident which happened when my kid was 3 years old. Though we tease her about it now, it is quite a traumatizing experience.

It was a Friday, I was just back home from work, made tea for my brother who was sick and his friend who came to drop him. After the friend went, i was in the kitchen with hopes for a cool, laid back weekend; suddenly my kid yelled saying that something was stuck inside her nostril. I couldn't see anything inside but she said that she was smelling camphor and it went inside. When asked where she took it from, she said it was on the TV table. 

Poor thing, my sick brother who had come to take rest, took us on bike to a nearby pediatrician who said camphor, after getting inside the lungs, would cause pneumonia which is treatable and that the child may have seizures. The word "seizure" almost gave me one. He said, "You can admit the child at SRMC or Apollo for observation in the night, if only you are worried. Nothing to panic".  We would never take a chance and decided to take her to SRMC. My husband joined us in the cab on the way and the poor child was crying throughout. 

In SRMC Emergency section, after us explaining the situation, the doctors asked me and my husband to be out of the treatment room while only her aunt was inside. With some medical instrument resembling tongs, they had pulled the camphor tablet out. We were so relieved that we were out of our minds; did not even thank the doctor.

Camphor tablets, usually, are kept safely in a plastic box inside the pooja room. We do not know how it came near the TV. Though nothing critical happened, the experience was too traumatizing. 

Even in this unfortunate experience, two funny things happened (though we did not find them funny then). That was a phase in which my kid would call me "பாப்பா" (baby) whenever she was in a loving mood. When we were returning from the local pediatrician on bike, i was crying. She said, "பாப்பா, அழாத பாப்பா.. அங்க பாரு மாடு..." (Baby, don't cry. See there is a cow). Trying to console me even when she was freaked out, my dear little squishy devil..  

The next one was at SRMC. The camphor was pulled out with a doctor having the kid on her lap. As soon as the tablet was pulled out, the kid had urinated on the doctor. Poor doctor! We did not thank or apologize to the doctors, we were so much out of our minds then!

Raising a kid is such a tedious task. Even a small mistake due to lack of attention may result in a traumatic incident as this which gave me sleepless nights and disturbed, preoccupied days at work. But still, we are humans, with all our imperfections. With a toddler at home, we have to think twice before taking even a step perhaps!

"So, how is the title of this post related to the incident?", I got you. We switched to square camphor tablets instead of circular ones! And those are much bigger than my kid's nasal opening!