At some point between 18 and 24 months, Aaric was sitting in the doorway to our bedroom. Michael wanted him out, and the door shut, so he did what any first time parent who hasn't been warned would do - grabbed an arm, picked him up by it, and put him down just outside the door, and shut it. Aaric screamed his head off. I'm not even sure why we called the ped, we were so convinced that Michael had broken Aaric's wrist or arm. He was holding it funny and would NOT stop screaming! But I called the ped instead of rushing to the ER, and I could almost hear him rolling his eyes through the phone. No, really, he sounded relieved to be able to tell us that this really wasn't anything major, and we could fix it ourselves. It was simply nursemaid's elbow, and all you have to do is pull the arm out straight, palm of his hand facing up, and bend the arm in, bringing wrist to shoulder. Pops that sucker right back into place. And it worked. And we vowed to never again lift a child by one arm.
Then we had Mikayla and Mikayla learned to walk and then she decided that she was boss and we'd walk where she told us to! Her arm would go all nursemaid on us if we were just walking along holding her hand and she quickly decided to change direction. We became champs at fixing it, and we read that some kids are more prone to the condition/injury than others. On one occasion though, I did the easy little fix and she still held it funny. And still cried. An hour later she still held it funny and whined. So off to the ER we went. By the time we got there, she was fine. They still saw her and looked it over and said it was fine. That was around three years ago.
Now Mikayla has learned to climb onto counters - even without the assistance of chairs. And she's learned how to jump off of them. For the record, to say that we strongly discourage this habit would be quite an understatement. One of these counters is around 3.5 feet up. She jumped. She was fine at first, but after a minute she was "Ow ow ow" -ing. After 10 minutes of that and crying I decided maybe she wasn't kidding. Michael happened to call then, and since he's the one who trained to be an EMT, he's the injury expert of the two of us. I know illnesses, he knows injuries. He said to ice it and give motrin. We had no motrin. The last bottle was recently tossed, because it had expired. We'd gotten it two years ago when Aaric had a concussion. So I iced it. It was hurting behind her knee. She finally fell asleep and all was well.
Until she woke up screaming in pain. She screamed and screamed and screamed and you'd have thought her entire leg was being crushed, one bone at a time. It was a little after midnight. Michael was, of course, not home. He never is on nights like this. He's out on an Army camping trip - which they like to call "going to the field." I called him to see what he thought. It was decided that my options were to let her scream in pain all night or take her to the ER. I woke Aaric, sent him to the potty and handed him pants to put on. When I went to find him, he was back in bed sleeping, pantless. I managed to get him up and gave him some tea to drink to wake him up. I dressed her and myself and off we went.
Less than a block from our house, she's commenting on the houses in the neighborhood. She talked the whole way there. On the way through the ER doors, she told me that her leg didn't hurt. By the time we made it back into our little curtain room (around 20 minutes, not bad), she was in a great mood. She giggled with the nurse. They both snacked on granola bars - packed to keep them awake and busy. I figured Aaric would probably go back to sleep and then I'd have to carry a sleeping 48 pound boy AND a crippled 38 pound girl through the hospital, all while carrying the 2 pound one inside. Turns out that was NOT a problem. They were so hyper.
While we waited on the doctor, Mikayla jumped off of the bed a few times. I tried to tell her not to - if she'd screwed something up in there, we didn't need to make it worse. I asked her if she'd be jumping from any more counters. She said no. I asked why not. "Because you said so." Yeah, right, that is SUCH a fake answer! Especially since I was telling her less than a minute earlier not to jump off the bed but she did it again anyway. I reminded her of the excrutiating pain she'd felt for the past 3 hours, and that not breaking a leg is a very good reason to not jump off of counters. It seems she'd forgotten all about the pain.
The doctor checked her over, moved her legs around to check range of motion, had her walk back and forth across the room and out in the hall, had her jump up and down. The only thing that causes her pain at all now is if she straightens her leg and you pull it a bit to fully extend it. She can lay it flat with no problem. When it was actually hurting, bending her knee helped. But no, she miraculously healed in the car. He said they wouldn't say that there is nothing wrong - but just that they couldn't determine any certain injury.
So, we were sent out of there with a bottle of Motrin and a bottle of Tylenol to give if she should start hurting again, and instructions to keep icing it if it hurts again, and that if there's any major change in it, to come back. She skipped and hopped all the way to the car.
I should have requested Valium. We got home at 2:30 AM, both kids wide awake. It's now 3:20, and I think they may be finally sleeping. They had better sleep in tomorrow.
And next time that kid injures herself, I'm not taking her to the ER unless there are, like, bones protruding from skin. And even with that, she'd probably be in a great mood as soon as she saw the doc. Because that's just the kind of drama queen she is. She'd get to the ER, push the bone back into her leg, and hop around the waiting room as if nothing had happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment