So Lindsay’s had a rather rough last couple days. Saturday
evening, while we were getting ready for dinner, she was climbing down
from her bookcase and suddenly started screaming. Quickly obvious
that it was her arm; the same one she’d hurt at my cousin Matt’s
wedding in June. Unlike at the wedding, however, her arm didn’t
get better within half an hour or so, so after letting her eat what
dinner she could, my mom and I took her to the ER. Not really an
emergency, per se, but not a lot of doctors offices are open at 8pm on
Saturdays.
After working our way through the receptionist, the
triage nurse, and the paperwork lady, we finally went back to see the
doc, and he said it’s most likely "nursemaid’s elbow", which is
apparently very common in in kids from when they start getting really
active up until age 4 or so. The triage nurse (with nothing more
than a "how it happened" said that’s probably what it was, so
definitely not rare). Basically some of the tendons pop out of
place and it’s crazy painful to move around. The cause is
hyperextension and/or twising, and apparently nursemaids carring
infants are common adults to be affected. Seems weird, but
whatever.
While we were waiting for the doc, the nurse was doing
some preliminary stuff, and we got her to listen to Lindsay’s
heartbeat. She’s been obsessed since seeing the stethescope at
the hostpital after Emery was born, and the nurse even let her listen
herself. A high point in what had thus far been a hellish evening.
Next
stop was X-Ray, where they do everything digitally. Just have a
pad that they shoot the x-rays into and it makes a digital image, just
like a digital camera. Pretty nice not having to switch film and
all that. Again, Lindsay didn’t care too much for moving her arm
all around, but like a "big strong girl" she is, she sacked it up and
did very well. Best of all, she got a piglet sticker from the
tech, which she insisted on holding in her good hand and looking at for
the rest of the evening.
Once back at her bed, the doc came back
and confirmed that there was nothing broken, and said the fix should be
as simple as pinching her elbow in a certain place and twisting/lifting
her forearm to coax the tendons to snap back into place.
Squeeze-twist-pop, and back to normal. We got a blue popsicle for
Lindsay, which she thoroughly enjoyed while waiting to make sure she
was going to start using it so we could leave.
Sure enough, after
a couple minutes, we gave her a paper cup and asked her to crush it,
and holding it in the good hand, lifted the bad arm’s fist and squished
it right down. But she didn’t open her fingers. So we tried
counting my fingers: ten. And then her fingers: five on the good
hand. Only two on the bad hand though, her thumb and index
finger. But she wasn’t snatching her arm away any more, so I
rolled it over to uncurl her fingers and found the reason. One
solitary kernel of corn, smashed in there from dinner three hours
before.
We were discharged within a few minutes, and drove home with one tired girl who was ready for bed.
Update:
This morning, Heather called me at the office, saying she thought she’d
done the same thing again, but to her other arm. I tried to
explain what the doc did over the phone, but it didn’t work, so she
came in to see me at the office, and sure enough.
Squeeze-twist-pop, and back to normal. I explained to Heather in
person, using my arm, and hopefully she’ll be set to deal with future
occurrences that I’m not around for.
I have a pre-op appointment with the doc