No one knew what was bothering 7-month-old Mya Whittington. Her discomfort stumped her parents and doctors. She was finally hospitalized — and a 2-inch feather eventually poked its way out of her neck, shocking everyone.
“We were just pretty much in disbelief,” Mya’s dad, Aaron Whittington, 26, told ABCNews.com.
The mystery of Mya’s pain started on Saturday.
“I was at work and my wife noticed that the left side of her neck had started to swell, and she called me at work and asked if we should take her to the emergency room,” Whittington said.
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The couple decided to wait, thinking that Mya just had a swollen gland. They changed their minds the next morning.
“Sunday morning, when we woke up, it had doubled in size and there was a pimple-looking thing on the end of it,” he said. “We’re looking at it and going, ‘There’s no way this is a swollen gland.’”
Mya was admitted to a hospital near the family’s home in Hutchinson, Kansas. Doctors thought she had a staph infection of her lymph nodes. But when they tried to drain the bump, nothing came out. Hours later, Aaron Whittington and his wife Emma noticed what appeared to be a “half-inch string” protruding from Mya’s face.
“[The pediatrician] threw on gloves and she pulled out a 2-inch feather and she’s like, ‘It’s a feather.’ And we’re like, ‘What do you mean it’s a feather?’ And she showed us,” Whittington said, still in disbelief.
