Coins, Ambulances, & Surgeons (or "What I did Friday Night")

It was 8:45 pm. I was walking from the kitchen to the bedroom and saw Francesca cough - just a small cough. She looked up and had tears in her eyes. I asked her if she was okay. She said, and I quote, "I ate money". Well folks, that left little to the imagination. I got out the jar of coins and asked her to show me which money she ate. She pointed to the quarter. So, Bart and I proceeded to the local ER with our 2 year old collector. She was x-rayed and when the doctor asked us to go down the hall to view the x-ray we were about 20 ft. away when we caught sight of that coin stuck in our daughter's esophagus. It wasn't hard to spot. Well, it happened to be turned in the exact "right" position so as to not block her airway. They had to transport her to Children's Medical Center in an ambulance. We got her there about 12:30 am. They x-rayed her again, still stuck. The surgeon had told us before he took her back that he thought it was a penny in there, I told him we thought it was a quarter. His response was, "Ah, you never get back as much as you think you're going to get." Ha! Although I couldn't fully appreciate the humor at the moment. At 3:00am they took her in for surgery. At 3:45am she was done. It was a dime folks. I'm keeping it for posterity's sake. At 4:00am she was in recovery and mad as the dickens with IV tubes sticking out everywhere. At 4:45am we were on our way home after a very, very long night. Francesca had a sore throat and swollen lips the next day and today, she is doing fine except she is still very hoarse. So, how much do you think that dime will end up costing us? I don't want to think about it. Of course, we are ever so grateful that our baby is fine. It was a long, scary night.