WARNING: This story may cause you to throw-up or laugh until you cry

Please note: This story is not for the squeamish!!

Well, Gene and I fell into bed last night at 1:30am after a 4 hour wait at the ER. Here's kind of how the evening's events unfolded...

At 9:15pm I was finishing up the ladies' meeting that I had with the girls from our CG when I got a phone call from one of the guys in our CG (who was supposed to be in a men's meeting with Gene and the rest of the CG guys). He started laughing and said, "Renee, we're taking your husband to the ER right now because he just blew a chicken bone or something out of his nose and he can't get his nose to stop bleeding." This comment was followed by various other laughs in the background. I said, "Who is this and what in the world are you talking about?" Ben put Gene on the phone and he confirmed that it was true, so I left my CG ladies at my apt. and told them to pray as I drove to the ER to meet up with Gene and the guys.

When I arrived at the hospital, I found the whole ER waiting room staring at Gene, Sung, Aaron, and Ben (the 3 guys from our CG who insisted on coming along) as they all made a scene by telling and retelling and retelling the story over and over again. (Ok, any girl who is reading this right now, this is the part where you are supposed to feel sorry for me!) They kept on laughing while Gene sat there holding his nose and Ben kept on looking in "the bag" that they had brought with them with the mystery "chunk" inside, while taking pictures of it with their cell phones. They were all enthralled with the story and kept recounting it to me all night long. I'm sure we were quite the scene for all the other ER patients as the boys kept exclaiming, "Dude, what do you think it was that flew out of his nose!?"

Gene and I were very blessed to have all three of the guys stay with us and care for Gene as we waited 3 1/2 hours in the waiting room while Gene's nose kept bleeding. Ben made sure that Gene stayed stocked with gauze, and Aaron and Sung kept asking if we wanted any food or drinks. We kept telling them that they could leave because I was there now, but they insisted on staying until we went back to the dr. Thanks guys! We were truly blessed by your care and generosity! (Even though we know that they only wanted to stick around so that they could find out what in the world the "thing" in the bag was!) haha

At 12:15 we were finally called back, and then the guys left. We then sat for 45 more minutes back in a little tiny room next to the bathroom while we waited for the dr. The nurse came in and said, "Well, I hear you have a nose bleed." And Gene said, "Yeah, but I'm concerned because something blew out of my nose 4 hours ago and it's in that bag." She then went on to say (without even looking at it), "Oh, it's just a blood clot." And Gene said, "Umm, I know what a blood clot looks like and that's not it." So she took a peek and said, "Wow, you're right. I never saw anything like that before." And when the Dr. came in, she also said that she had never seen anything like that before either, so she referred him to a nose specialist. She said last night that it looked like a piece of his sinus lining came off. She wants him to get checked out by a nose specialist this week to make sure that there is no further damage.

So, the funniest part of the whole evening was when the guys kept looking at the "thing" and were trying to give it a name (yeah, I know......boys are gross) and I said, "Why does the bag clang on the table when you set it down?!" and Ben said that it was because they had put the "thing" in ice before they left to preserve it. And Aaron said, "Yeah, Renee. You know, like you would do if you lost a piece of your finger. You have to keep it on ice incase they need to reattach it." Ben said that it was his brillant thinking to know to do that. Needless, to say, the "thing" is now in our freezer because Gene has to take it to the nose specialist to show him. Ewwww......

Anyway, Gene would love your continued prayers because he currently has NO sense of smell and he's heading off to the doctor again on Friday. And I would love your continued prayers as I steer clear of the freezer while "Pauly" is visiting us. (Pauly is the oh-so-affectionate name that the guys call "the thing.")

(We'll spare you the grotesque picture of Pauly, but for anyone who is truly brave and wants to see a picture of it, Gene can send it to you.)