One Tube down...one to go

Owen pulled one of his tear duct tubes out last night. Well, as far out as it would come. This meant he had what looked like a rubberband hanging from the corner of his eye. I didn't freak till later and give myself credit for it. I had just pulled into Sams Club to get road drinks for our vacation. I open Owens door to get him out and notice he has one of Gwendolyns hair tie rubber bands covering his eye. I wonder how the heck he got one of those and was about to bush it away when it dawns on me what it is. I calmly yelp and get back in the front seat. I grab the phone book and can't for the life of me spell EYE. I finally find it and notice it is 6:05 pm, five freaking minutes after the clinic closes. I get patched through to the answering service and at that point am half way across town to the clinic. The Dr is nice enough to call me back from Hawaii. By then I am in his lot, with no one there. His advice is to either go the ER, wait till morning and go to his clinic, or cut it and yank it out myself. None are fabulous options, but I know what I must do. His advice is to do it myself and I agree. I start driving to my office, since it is the closest place with scissors and I can't stand seeing him like this and I can't keep hearing Gwendolyn ask "what is wrong with brothers eye???". I finally call Matt, now that I am not waiting for the Dr to call me back and know that I will break down when I start talking to him. Sure as anything I do and all I can say is everything is fine, we are fine. I finally am able to get the jist out to him and he convinces me to drive to his parents house (extra 10 minutes) and his Dad would be there. I had already distracted them both with a DVD of Bugs Life, Owens favorite. So I give him his YiYi (pacifier) and continue driving. They are waiting for me outside (MIL and FIL) and we decide to leave Owen in his carseat and do minor surgery in the driveway. It is determined that Gwendolyns round tip scissors would be best. Once she sees that we are using them, she volunteers to do the tube cutting. Thanks, but we have it under control. I hold his head tight and grandma hold his hands down and poppa does a quick snip. We are instructed to pull from the top, fast. It is long and rubbery. Rufus, FIL, did the pulling and Owen didn't seem to notice a thing. There was no tension and it came out super easy. I hope that means it did the job it was supposed to while it was in there. Hopefully he will have nice, wide tear ducts and no more issues. Not sure why, but there is only one shot at this surgery, you can't go do it again later. All in all, it was three inches long, but tied into a circle inside his nose. The Dr was happy that it was in for over 6 weeks, but I thought he had wanted it in for 6 months. I am relieved it happened before we went on vacation and now feel like I could do it if necessary with the other eye. Not that I want to though.