Nursemaid's Elbow

Penny dislocated her elbow today. She and I were taking a nap after we got back from fishing this morning. When she woke up, she sat up and started crying. She told me her arm hurt. I assumed she must have slept on it wrong and that maybe it had "gone to sleep" like your leg does sometimes. It didn't get any better though as time went on and she kept on crying off and on. She wouldn't use her arm at all either. Tray and I took her outside and let her play some, but her arm seemed to get worse. She just cried a lot and eventually just started holding it very still. She'd barely twitch her fingers if you asked her to hold your hand or tried to get her to take something from you with that hand. About an hour after she woke we decided to take her to the doctor. It was of course about a 45 minute car ride to the doctor (urgent care clinic on a saturday) and then a fairly long wait in the waiting room (college world series baseball kept us entertained). She was so good in the waiting room. She sat in my lap and only asked to get down a couple times and was easily put off by telling her she had to stay in my lap. Just before we were called back I sat her down with the intention of walking around with her holding her other hand, but as soon as she stood up she started crying again. And, then, like I said we were called back. She was scared of the nurse (who was actually very nice and gave Penny a sticker) who called us back and cried when we weighed her and took her temperature, etc. She was crying pretty hardcore by the time the doctor came in. Although, the doctor actually seemed to appear very quickly - probably because of the crying. The doctor seemed to know right away what was wrong and explained that it's really very common for toddler's elbows to dislocate. She said she'd have to pop it back in and that Penny wasn't going to like it. I braced her and the doctor popped everything back into place. The adults in the room - the doctor, the nurse, Tray, and I - collectively held our breaths... and Penny stopped crying. Just like that. She sat there and started waving her arm around and jabbering at us about her new sticker like nothing at all had happened and that she hadn't been in extreme pain for the last 2.5 hours completely unable to use her arm. All of the adults just started laughing because her reaction was so night and day.

Apparently, nursemaid's elbow (as it is called) is the most common orthopedic injury in children under 2. It happens most often when parents swing their kids by their hands or pick them up by their arms instead of under their arms. It also happens when toddlers throw tantrums and go to fling themselves onto the floor but mom or dad still has ahold of their arm. Stuff like that. There was none of that with Penny though. We guess she just zigged when she should have zagged sitting up in the bed after her nap. We'll have to be more mindful of her arm because once it's happened once, it's fairly easy to happen again. We are so glad she's ok and that we didn't "wait and see" until tomorrow assuming she'd just sprained it somehow. I only regret that we didn't get her there sooner. But, as I say, she's fine now and seems rather disinterested in the whole thing. Like, yeah, we went to the doctor. No big deal. Can we run around the yard some more?