Once upon a time, it was a cold night, well actually it wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t really night. It was not actually very late, but I was trying to get your attention. Did it work? Now let me get back to the story. What started out as an ordinary day turned into my mom's worst nightmare. I was three and as we all know, three year olds are not the smartest people out there. I was intelligent beyond my years. Well, I guess that is not the complete truth. To put this politely, my brain was only about halfway developed, well I guess that’s being a little too nice. It was only about one-quarter of the way developed. In simpler terms, I was very unintelligent. Now that we established my “intelligence,” it’s time for the story.

When I was younger my family and I lived in England. It was a very nice place from what I can remember. Since I was three, some of the memories from there have left me as I have grown over the years. One story I remember quite vividly is a story I am about to tell you. It started out like this.

“Mom!” my brother yelled.  “Can Poppy and I watch TV?”

“Sure honey,” mom replied. “Just make sure it’s an appropriate show for Poppy.”

“Okay mom, I will,” my brother said.

On this particular night, my dad was at work and my mom was upstairs getting ready to go to dinner with her friends or so she thought. My brother Grant and I were watching TV and realized I was hungry. Grant, who was six at the time, got up to get me a snack. He got me trail mix, the kind that has lots of peanuts. Anyways he got that for me and I started eating it. The taste of the M&Ms was sweet in my mouth and the aroma of the peanuts floated around me like clouds in the sky. One minute I was sitting on the couch watching TV with my brother. The next minute I was upstairs with my mom who looked really scared. At that time I didn’t really know why she looked so worried. The only thing I was thinking about was why did my nose ache so much and why was the smell of peanuts so strong all of a sudden.

“GRANT!” yelled my mom. “Come here, now.”

“Coming,” my brother replied. “What’s wrong?”

“Bring a flashlight and tweezers,” my mom said.

“Okay, but why?” he asked.

“Somethings in Poppy’s nose,” My mom said.

My brother came upstairs with a flashlight and tweezers in hand, and a little confused about what was going on. My mom grabbed the flashlight and the tweezers, she turned on the flashlight and pointed it towards me. My mom made me look towards the ceiling, while my brother was holding the flashlight she looked up my nose. My mom was so surprised with what she discovered that she gasped and froze in her footsteps.

“What’s wrong with Poppy?” my brother asked.

“There is something in her nose, it’s really wedged in there,” my mom told my brother. “I need to call the doctor to see what we should do. Watch Poppy for a couple of minutes?”

“Okay,” said my brother.

My brother was looking quite scared at the time. He was really worried about what would happen to me next. As soon as my mom got off the phone with the doctor we left for the appointment right after she called my dad and told him everything that was happening. He told her he would meet us at the doctor. My mom dropped off my brother at our friends house and then drove to the immediate care. We got there and they looked at my nose and told my mom they didn’t have the right things to help me.

“What! You can’t help my daughter?” my mom said.

“No, I’m sorry,” said the doctor. “We don’t have the right tools here.”

“Where should I go then?” said my mom.

“The larger hospital in Slough,” said the doctor.

My mom and I drove to the hospital. It was about a half an hour away, but for my mom it felt like longer. The doctor warned my mom that if I fell asleep or started breathing really heavy the peanut could travel to my lungs and kill me. This was very traumatic for my mom hearing that her three-year-old daughter could die if she breathed too hard. My mom was really nervous driving the half hour to the hospital. We got to the hospital and the ER was packed. There weren’t even seats to sit in.

Not even five minutes after we got to the hospital they called us back to meet the doctor. This was because the nurse at the immediate care place had called ahead and the doctors at the hospital in Slough were waiting for us to get there. We went back to a room. The doctors talked to my parents for a long time, about things they might have to do.  After their eternally long conversation, talking about procedures and a potential surgery. The doctor’s finally started to help me. First, they gave me medicine, called Ketamine, that made me not aware of what was happening around me. Once it started working they used a medical vacuum to try to suck the peanut out, well as you could probably guess that didn’t work. The doctors started talking to my parents about potential surgery.  My mom was really scared about the idea of her three-year-old daughter going into surgery, in another country.

“Surgery?” my mom asked. “It’s just one little peanut.”

“Yes, unfortunately that might be our only option,” said the doctor.

“But she’s three,” said my mom.

Just as my parents were losing hope and thinking I was going to have to go to surgery, the doctors came in with these long tweezers that were pointy. They told my parents that I would not have to have surgery if they were able to pinch the peanut with the tweezers.

“Did it work?” asked my parents.

“Yes!” said the doctor. “It was a success.”

This was a scary event in my parents lives but it wasn’t over yet. After the doctors got the peanut out, they thought that I was going to “wake up”  immediately. After about twenty minutes I still wasn’t awake. So much time went by, the doctors were getting worried and it was showing on their faces.

“Why isn’t she waking up?” my parents asked.

“We don’t know,” said the doctors.

Just as my parents were starting to get really scared, I woke up. After I woke up I felt really sick, and I asked to go to the bathroom, and then I got sick all over the floor. The doctor told my parents that before I went home I should rest for a little bit at the hospital so they could monitor me. I stayed at the hospital for a couple more hours, and then I was allowed to go home. The lesson that I learned from this incident is never stick things up your nose because if you do you may end up in the emergency room like I did. You should also think about your actions before you perform them because making bad decisions could result in an injury to you or someone around you.