First ER Visit

Poor Lyle baby had his first trip to the Emergency Room on Sunday.  He was crawling on the deck and got too close to the railing.  His uncle grabbed him quick so he wouldn't fall, but he caught him by his arm.  Zach and I had gone to a movie.  I think you always know something is wrong when you get a call while you are still in the movie.  We headed back over, and tried to reassure ourselves he was fine.  When we got there he was happy, but only playing one-handed.  The other arm was just hanging there and he would cry if you tried to move or bend it very much.  So off to the ER we went.

Everything went pretty quickly, and once the Dr. looked at it she wanted to get a few XRAYS.  Zach volunteered to stay in the room with him, and I'm grateful for that.  It was hard to listen to him cry while they got all the pictures they needed.  He was pretty cooperative otherwise, playing and looking at books while we waited.  The Dr came back and told us they didn't see anything, but were waiting for the radiologist to confirm.  So we waited for another couple hours while the radiologist dealt with trauma's that came in.  Lyle finally fell asleep,  they confirmed nothing showed on his pictures, and we were told we could go.  They gave us information on "non-specific arm pain" and "nursemaid's elbow" which of course I didn't read until we were gone, and told us he would probably favor his uninjured arm for a day or two, but should improve.

I stayed home in the morning on Monday with him, just to monitor and see how he did.  He wasn't wanting to play a whole lot and stayed pretty close to me.  I decided to take him out to Annie's after his nap so I could go to work in the afternoon.  He still would not crawl on his arm, and was fussing whenever you bent it.  He was so pitiful playing with only one hand and he couldn't get to any of the toys out of his reach, it broke my heart.  I couldn't leave him, so back home we went.  I don't think I ever would have expected to react like that, but when it's your own child who is hurt, it's a whole different ball game.  I called the Dr's office and made an appointment for the morning.  I just had this feeling that whatever was going on was not going to get better in a day or two.

We went to our doctor's office in Harper and she confirmed that it was "nursemaid's elbow" or basically a dislocated elbow.  Apparently it's pretty common in kids under five, when you catch or lift them by their arms.  She was able to put it back in place (she was not sure why the ER did not do this in the first place), and pretty soon he was lifting and grabbing things.  What a wave of relief.  He cried for a bit when they reduced it, but then he was happy and waving at all the doctors and nurses.  By the time I dropped him off at the sitter's he was crawling and playing like nothing happened.

And now he is great.  And I once again confirmed that I much prefer to be on the nurse end rather than the patient end of things.  I was grateful for all the family that was praying, that it was an injury easily fixed, and that he won't be in a cast on his birthday! :)