ER Visit

We made our first ever visit to the ER with our children on Sunday evening.

I was cleaning up in the kitchen while John and Gemma played in the next room. William and Amelia were playing in their room. All of a sudden, Gemma started crying - the cry that makes a mama's skin crawl. The crying didn't stop and she came around the corner to find me. She was holding her arm and continued to cry. Any attempts to move her arm were met with more crying.

Gemma (so far) is not a crier. She regularly slides head first off of couches into coffee tables. She either shakes it off and keeps playing or need a 15 second cuddle on my lap before continuing on her way.

She sat on my lap for a long time and did not want to get up.
She continued to hold her arm and cry (although the volume decreased).
Any bump or movement of the arm brought the crying back up.

So, off to the ER we went. I will say it was no picnic getting her into her car seat without hurting her further.

The official ruling: Nursemaid's elbow (or sort of pulled the elbow ligaments out of joint. Kind of). The dr popped everything back into place on the second attempt. Other than the manipulating of her arm, she was very quiet and cooperative.

We got home way past her bed time, but she went right to be and slept until morning. Today she is using her hand/arm totally normally.

Several points:

1. To ensure nothing else was wrong after the elbow was back in place, Gemma had to use her arm. But, she didn't want to because she knew it was hurting her. She was offered stickers, books and finally a popsicle in order to get her to move her arm. Gemma was very creative in using her other arm and mouth in order to get what she wanted. She had both the dr and nurses laughing at her creativity.

2. When we arrived, there were cartoons playing on the TV in the patient room. I thought that was nice that they were thoughtful enough to turn on cartoons for our kiddo. About a half hour later, I realized the cartoon was Family Guy (a totally inappropriate selection for anyone under the age of 25 years.)

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