The Button Battery Scare
Life’s messy, magical and worth writing about.
That’s the mantra that ran through my head as I carried Lark into the emergency room at 5 pm, the waiting room already heaving with people at their worst. Desperate faces, tired bodies, everyone needing help. There’s a haunting poetry in it – humanity at its most fragile, all gathered under fluorescent lights, waiting hours for urgent help.
We were ushered to triage. A nurse snapped a little heart monitor on Lark’s finger, pressed a stethoscope to her chest, and did the touch-fingerprint test to see how her skin reacted. Then came the question that made my stomach lurch:
“How long ago did you find her with a button battery in her mouth?”
The Mad Dash
Nanna and Nandad are prolific hearing aid users, not that you’d always know it, and hearing aids are powered by tiny button batteries. They’re careful, but our resourceful lion cub somehow found one and popped it in her mouth like a Tic Tac.
If there’s one, could there be more?
We did the balance-of-probabilities, asked the internet, called the ambulance. But ambulances were “over capacity” – and we’re in the country. By the time one arrived, they wouldn’t have had the equipment to X-ray her anyway, and time wasn’t on our side. So into the Corolla-copter we jumped, Lark’s Favourite Aunty riding shotgun, navigating the slowest drivers on the planet. Sirens and lights would’ve been handy.
Button batteries are no joke. They can cause fatal internal burns in hours. The hospital wasn’t messing around either – Category 2, pretty much straight in. James the Radiographer greeted us with a calm efficiency that steadied my nerves. The only challenge: getting a wriggly toddler who loves to sprint to stand still for X-rays.
Snap. Snap. Snap. It felt like a fashion shoot, except this season’s most unwanted accessory was a rogue button battery.
Enter Dr Matt
We were barely back in the waiting room – relatively – when Dr Matt, practically gleeful, summoned us behind a curtain.
“How long ago?”
“How many?”
“What kind of battery?”
“Could she have swallowed another one?”
My hairs prickled. Why all the questions? Did he see something? Did we need surgery? My mind galloped straight to worst-case scenarios.
But Dr Matt seemed suspiciously jovial. Then it dawned on me – he hadn’t even looked at the X-ray yet. Once we cleared that up, he literally frolicked away to inspect it.
Either he’d just started his shift… or the entire medical profession that day. Maybe it was a new trial in bedside manner. Whatever it was, Dr Matt was clearly vibing, and honestly? I was here for it. Live your best life, Dr Matt.
The Greasy Epilogue
He returned with good news – the kind you deep down knew, but didn’t dare assume. No battery. Just relief.
Radiographer James had mentioned earlier that button batteries light up like Christmas trees on X-rays. Thankfully, Santa Claus isn’t coming to town tonight.
We tried to escape (why is leaving a hospital harder than getting in?), feeling thankful to the Australian healthcare system that Medicare covered it and no bill on the way out. And thanking Lark’s Favourite Aunty with the only logical gesture: dinner. The duo – two peas in a deliciously greasy pod – unanimously chose KFC. Lark munched popcorn chicken all the way home, scattering crumbs like confetti of relief.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Nanna and Nandad were in full CSI mode: vacuuming like maniacs, turning the house upside down, hunting for the “death batteries.” Perplexed, distressed, practically giving themselves tension headaches.
We calmed their panic with a fried chicken delivery – something not to be taken for granted in rural Australia, where no restaurant dares to deliver. Between bites, we retold the ER saga, equal parts terror and comedy, and ended the night grateful: no scalpel, no stitches… just grease-stained napkins and one very pleased lion cub.
