Memorial Day: A Very Memorable Day.

Don't you love Memorial Day weekend? The weather's nice, you have a barbecue, they open up the splash park in Green River--it's just a great time, right?  Well, our Memorial Day was a little different this year. 

A) It snowed. Check it out.

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B) We had a lovely visit to the ER.  Evie woke up from her afternoon nap around 5:00 and she was super fussy and clingy.  Before her nap, she was throwing an absolute fit and as I was pulling her down the hall, she let her feet go out from under her, you know, for good measure.  It was one of those darling moments.  The day before this, Rob took down Evie's crib and set up her toddler bed in the girls' room.  So, back to the story, I was holding her and trying to comfort her because it's very out of character for her to be sad for so long.  When we fed her, we noticed that she wasn't using her left arm at all.  We tried to get her to use it and she wouldn't.  Every time we would touch it or move it she would cry.  So at around 6:00, I took her to the ER (Rob's the only one who's done kid ER visits in our house, so it was my turn). 

At the ER, they asked if she had had any kind of accident or injury, and I said no.  They told me it was most likely nursemaid's elbow, which is very common in children under 2.  It is when the radius gets dislocated from the ligament that usually holds it in place.  It is normally caused when someone swings them around by their hands, or yanks on their arm, or if they fall on an outstretched arm.  At that point, I was frantically going over what had happened that day.  Did she somehow fall when she was in her room alone during naptime? Now that she's in her toddler bed, I have no idea what she's doing in there when the door's closed.  I never swing her by her hands, but occasionally I do pull on her arm to get her to come where I want her.  I really hope that I wasn't the cause of this, but I honestly don't know.  Anyway, all my guilt aside, the doctor said that the fix for nursemaid's elbow is pretty simple, they just pull on the arm a bit and bend at the elbow, bringing the hand up and toward the child's face and it usually pops the bone back into place.  They told me that after it was back in place, she should be able to use her arm again within a few minutes.  So they tried it a couple times and Evie still wasn't using her arm.  She could use it if she really needed to (like to push the doctor away), but she wouldn't unless absolutely necessary.  For example, while we were waiting, she got bored of all the toys I had brought for her--I would too after four hours--and so I let her play with my sunglasses.  It definitely takes two hands for her to open them, but since she didn't want to move her left hand, she learned how to open them using her right hand and her mouth.  Little smart, determined girl.

They took some x-rays of her arm, made us wait another hour or so (what's a good ER visit without lots and lots and LOTS of waiting?), and then said, we don't know what's wrong, all the x-rays look normal, go home.  Fabulous. My child isn't using her left arm.  SOMETHING is not normal!  Anyway, the next day I took her to an orthopedist (a bone doctor), who said, yes it's nursemaid's elbow and it's normal for her to be sore from it for a few days.  He said she would start using it again when she was ready.  He gave me a sling to use, which was the smallest one they had, and it was still big on my little Evie. She hated it and it was kind of useless, because she did a pretty good job of keeping her arm motionless on her own, but I kept it on her anyway as a reminder to myself not to try to hold her hand or touch her arm. 

Poor girl.  It really limited her mobility.  When you're as short as Evie, you need both hands for lots of things!  She started using it more and more, and by about Thursday, she was completely back to her full range of motion.  It was really sad to see her so handicapped, where she's usually such a climber and so active.  I will take the extra activity (and accompanying messes) any day over having to watch her try to get along without one arm!  There's no lasting damage, although they told me that once a child has had it happen once, they are more likely to have it happen again.  I have been making much more of an effort to be conscious of when I'm pulling on her, and making sure that I'm not hurting her.  I wanted to let all you mommies of little ones know about this so you can be aware. I would never intentionally do anything to hurt my sweet baby, and I know you all feel the same way.  Thank goodness she's back to normal now, and I have all the messes again!  I've never been so grateful for messes!