Change your little girl's earrings, for crying out loud.

The most horrible thing just happened. I'm still shaking. Brynley got these cute minnie mouse earrings from disneyland. She's been wearing them for about a week and a half but we've made sure to twist them every day to make sure her ears don't scab around the posts. Tonight she wanted to change them. One of them was kind of stuck. This has happened once before where it bled a little and scabbed around the post but I just soaked it and it came out with a little pulling. Well tonight we could NOT get this earring out. She got the back off but the earring was STUCK in her ear. I was soaking it and twisting it. It was weird because it twisted around very easily but it wouldn't come OUT. She was screaming in pain so I went to get some ice to numb it a little bit. Brandon ended up getting it out while I was in the kitchen. She was just balling.

We didn't really want the ear to close up so we got out her really good earrings that were used to pierce her ears. I was trying to put it in and it wasn't going in. I was so confused. I looked at the back of her ear to see if it was coming through on the other side and I saw a little metal. I pushed it in thinking it was coming through and it wouldn't come. The BACK of her minnie mouse earring was stuck IN her ear!! I thought she had taken the back off because I didn't see it when I was taking off her earring. The WHOLE back was IN her ear. I almost threw up. I had to walk out of the bathroom and tell Brandon and my mom (who had just finished babysitting). I couldn't look at it. (It was the kind of back that is kind of cone shaped not wide with holes and shaped like a pretzel.) I was sick.

We didn't know what to do. Should we take her to a doctor? We got some numbing neosporin and the ice and numbed it for a while. I have some really sharp tweezers and Brandon kind of pushed on it until the back poked out through the hole. He used the tweezers to pull. He got it about half way out but couldn't get the big end out. She was just screaming in pain. It was bleeding. I was holding her and sobbing because, really this is my fault since I didn't have her change her earrings sooner. Meanwhile Caleb is downstairs with Grandma just praying their little hearts out. We held ice on it and tried to decide if we should take her in somewhere and where and when etc. He thought he'd try one more time because Brynley didn't want to go to the Dr and get a shot. He pulled and was able to get it out. She was still screaming. I was still sobbing. It was still bleeding. We put the ice back on there and just held it there for a while.

She ended up calming down (as did I) and we got the bleeding stopped. We cleaned it all out. We asked her if she wanted to let the holes close up and heel or if she wanted to put back in her original earrings for a while and we'd really watch it to make sure it didn't get infected. She wanted to put the piercing earrings back in. So we did and it didn't hurt her at all. Probably because her hole was so stretched out. No skin tore or anything and it actually looked pretty ok just a little swollen afterwards.

Anyway, that's my story. I'm still shaking. So, lesson. Change the earrings. Don't rely on just twisting them and assume everything is ok. And if you get cheap-o earrings change them even more often. (Deep breathes...)