Emma and Aaron Whittington were excited to have a child, so when they finally conceived, they began preparing for their baby’s arrival. They kept up with regular doctor appointments to ensure their unborn baby was healthy. After several months, they went to the hospital in Hutchinson, Kansas to find out the sex of their baby.
Following an ultrasound scan, the doctor informed them that they would be having a baby girl, which was exactly what they wanted. They had already chosen the name Maya for their little girl. However, Emma noticed that their baby’s jaw kept swelling up, so they decided to have it checked. To their surprise, the doctor found something unexpected.
“We couldn’t believe it when the doctor told us we were having a baby girl. You know, it was our heart’s desire, so we were just so happy,” the expectant couple explained. After thanking the doctor, they got into their car and drove home in excitement.
After a couple of months, it was time for them to welcome their baby into the world. Thankfully, things went well, and their baby was born without a hitch. The birth of Maya brought a lot of joy to her parents. In fact, lots of friends and family who visited them admitted one thing: their baby girl was a perfect combination of them both. The proud parents cherished their daughter and showered her with immense love.
Little did they know that something they never expected would happen months later. Since Maya was a cheerful little girl, she never got tired of playing around the house. She also had a habit of putting things in her mouth, then she’d crawl to her parents, open her mouth, and smile at them.
When the young infant was over four months old, her parents noticed she started to pull the left side of her face. However, they had no idea what was bothering her. Initially, they thought it was just teething or an ear infection, but in reality, things were far more complicated than that.
Two months later, Maya was then in a lot of discomfort and couldn’t stop crying every day and night. One Saturday afternoon, Emma was home with her baby girl while her husband was away at work. All of a sudden, she noticed her daughter was in a lot of pain and that the left side of her jaw had swollen up. What could be wrong, she thought? Alarmed, she picked up her phone and called her spouse.
“I was at work that day when a call came in from my wife. She told me that the left side of our daughter’s neck had started to swell and she was in a lot of pain. Then she asked me to join them at the hospital,” Aaron recalled.
As soon as the duo got to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center with their little daughter, they couldn’t wait to hear the doctor’s report. After a while, the doctors told them the swelling below Maya’s left jaw was just a swollen gland. Then the medics gave them some antibiotics and told them their daughter would be fine. The couple was relieved that the pain wasn’t a symptom of anything severe and they couldn’t wait to see their little girl being her happy self again.
However, Maya’s health didn’t become better, and by the next morning, it had become even worse. While checking on her, they discovered the swollen area had doubled in size. It had grown up to the size of one and a half golf balls.
“Sunday morning, when we woke up, it had doubled in size, and there was a pimple-looking thing on the end. That’s when we realized how serious it was, and at the same time, it made us more worried. We realized there was no way it was a swollen gland; it was way more than that. Our daughter looked like Quasimodo,” Aaron explained.
Since he and his wife had to be out that morning for a meeting, they placed their daughter in her grandmother’s care. The aged woman then took the girl back to the hospital for further checkups. The doctor suspected she had developed a staph infection of her lymph nodes. Then they cracked the pimple on her face. However, when they attempted to drain the bump, nothing came out.
Some minutes later, the doctors gave Maya some intravenous antibiotics and drew a blue mark around the affected area of her face. They wanted to know if the swelling would increase. After a day of close observation, the physicians at the hospital scraped off the scab that had formed on the area that was drained. Just after the doctors were done, Emma and her husband noticed something sticking out of the spot. It looked like a stick or a thread emerging out of the hole of the scab. What could that really be, they wondered? However, since the doctors didn’t do or say anything about it, they thought it was nothing to worry about.
Later in the evening, Maya’s pediatrician, Sandra Mathis, visited her at home. Some minutes after she got there, the specialist asked the girl’s parents what the swelling on her face was. Then she observed the baby’s face and noticed something was there. However, she didn’t know what it was yet. Without wasting much time, she put on a pair of white gloves.
The doctor discovered something baffling that not only had most of the other patients talking but the staff were also debating about how it got there. Dr. Sandra told the girl’s parents that in her 20 years of working as a pediatrician, she had seen nothing like this before. The closest scenario to Maya’s case is a child who once had a hairbrush bristle stuck in his tonsils that had to be removed.
“When we told the pediatrician about our baby’s condition, she put on her gloves because she noticed something sticking out. And when she showed us, we were in complete disbelief. Nevertheless, we were grateful that she removed it without any problem. It could have gotten worse and became more serious than it already was if she hadn’t found it. It was very difficult to see our daughter in so much pain and not be able to do anything about it,” the doctor revealed.
That was hard to tell how something so bizarre got stuck in her jaw. However, the best guess was that the young toddler swallowed or inhaled it mistakenly. Then it got stuck in her throat or the inside of her cheek. However, her body rejected the object and tried to get rid of it. As a result, it forced the object out of the side of her left neck. Emma and Aaron usually had a down pillow on their bed. Although their daughter wasn’t always on it, they believed that was where she swallowed the object from.
Upon this discovery, Emma and her husband trashed the pillow into a bin. They then took Maya to a hospital in Wichita for further treatment. The swollen area of her face had a hard knot in it which was around 1.5 inches in size. Since the knot didn’t break on its own, the infant had to undergo surgery. Thankfully, her operation went well, and she got better by the day.
So, what was stuck in her jaw to begin with? You’re not going to believe this, but it was a two-inch long black feather. Maya’s parents were surprised to hear that a feather that long ended
up in the lower part of their baby’s left jaw. After the doctor pulled it out and a few days after Maya had to undergo surgery, she fully recovered. The doctors discharged her from the hospital and allowed her to go home.
Emma and her husband thanked the doctors for their support and were delighted that their child’s sleepless nights were now over. “My husband and I were just so happy that our baby doesn’t have to be in pain anymore. It was so hard for our baby to sleep or play, so we are grateful to the doctors who helped our beautiful angel,” Emma said.
Maya’s parents shared the story on social media, and it didn’t take long for the story to go viral. Emma and Aaron were surprised that many parents could relate to their family’s experience. Many of the people who commented on the story stated that their children also had similar problems in the past.
“I’m just glad that Emma made a quick full recovery and was back to her normal happy self. What do you think about Maya’s story? I can’t wait to read your thoughts in the comment
