Standing in the emergency room with a screaming child in your hands waiting for a nurse, it hits you how much the job sucks sometimes. Especially when you're the reason why she's at the hospital to begin with.
The three of us went to a student concert tonight at Lisa's school. Typically, Sophie grew restless after less than a half hour, so we left early and were walking to the car. I'm holding her hand when she decides she doesn't want to carry her own weight like a sucker anymore, and she buckles her legs so I'm stuck dragging her (again, typically). I give her arm a quick tug to get her back on her feet, and that's when the crying starts. Then the crying escalates to fell-fledged wailing, that's when we decide that since we have no clue what happened, it's time for our first hospital visit with the girl.
Standing in the waiting room packed with sick kids, Sophie was the only one making noise, which made me wonder: is she the worst off of the group or the best since she at least has energy to pitch a fit? I decided it had to be the latter, even though that didn't make much sense.
Thirty long loud minutes passed before we got in to see a triage nurse, and when we did the verdict was exactly what the admitting nurse suspected: Nursemaid's elbow. This might sound like one of Grandpa Simpson's quack diagnoses, but it's an incredibly common situation where the elbow joint becomes dislocated by pulling upward and twisting. Luckily, it's cured with a single maneuver that looks like it could be grounds for child abuse charges.
Afterward, as we sat waiting for our insurance info to process, Sophie sucked happily on an electrolyte-enhanced frozen popsicle and I thought about how easy it was to unwittingly bring harm to this little person. A few weeks ago, Mom had warned me about rough play that put a lot of pressure on the girl's arms, and now I see the potential dangers. For her, a joint can pop out of place; for us, our hearts can break in two.
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3 comments:
Janelle did this to Jack, and Bill did it ( twice ) to Abby.
Wait till she decides the fun game is to 'hang' between you and Lisa. She'll do it to herself...
Yeah, the days of us swinging her by her arms are over. All of us used to really enjoy that. Not to mention we played with the Bootay twins that way too.
It's very important HOW you hold them - swinging is one thing, but if they start twisting their arms and such, the strain on the elbow joints and such are HUGE. Jerking arms when lifting (like yanking on a rope when it has slack instead of tightening up the slack first before pulling hard) or dragging a kicking/screaming kid is no good, nor is one-armed lifting, and I don't like flipping a kid by their arms like my brother-in-law does (I hold Kiki and Popo by their bodies and spin them).
All of that is pediatrician and physical/occupational therapist approved :).
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