Not Again

Penny dislocated her elbow again on Sunday afternoon (it was Sunday the other two times too!). Only this time, we were up on top of Mt. Cheaha with no cell reception and spotty internet. We went down to the lodge and were told that the ranger didn't have the training to deal with it, and we were given directions to the nearest hospital in Anniston. It took the better part of an hour to get there. Penny mercifully fell asleep - a combination of all the crying and the fact that she hadn't napped that day since we'd been in the car during nap time. She was still asleep when we got to the ER so I went to check her in.

The waiting room was quite crowded, but they called me right back so I thought maybe a lot of those people were just with somebody else who was a patient, or that they triaged Penny to the front of the line. Nope. I sat there for ten minutes (at least) answering all the receptionist's questions (twice, actually, because she got about half way through and deleted it all somehow and had to start over). When we got done she told me that it would be quite awhile and maybe we "should go and get something to eat and come back." Seriously. She said that.

I knew Penny was still asleep in the truck so I decided to sit in the waiting room. As soon as I sat down, a man leaned over and said, "Ma'am I don't think you want to sit there, that's where so-and-so was sitting. She's real sick." I looked around the room and there were several people with surgical masks on (a sure sign they have the flu) and two or three either actively vomiting into bags or holding vomit bags. By this point I had moved but the man went on to describe so-and-so's symptoms as including vomiting and 103 degree fever. I felt very contaminated, and suddenly very resolved that I would not be taking Penny into that waiting room - and also very certain that it would be a long, long while before we would be seen by a doctor.

I went back out to the truck, doused myself (including my pants!) with hand sanitizer and discussed the situation with Tray. Penny heard my voice and woke up. By this time, Tray had managed to find instructions on how to reset the elbow online. The doctor had shown us the last time, and I'd since read about it too, but we were both reluctant to try it. Most of the websites say that you can really mess the elbow up if you don't know what you are doing. I recognize that that is probably a disclaimer to make sure people don't sue them, but I was still scared to try it. However, I was even more scared to take her into that ER. Before I would try it based on the internet though, I called 911 hoping that the dispatcher could walk me through it. She just wanted to know where we were and where to send the ambulance and got totally confused when I said we were outside the hospital. In my mind, I thought dispatchers like helped people do CPR and stuff. I thought maybe she could just walk me through it (Penny's normal doctor's office was closed what with it being Sunday and all). So, I know now that dispatchers have no medical knowledge, and I will not rely on that in the future. Ha!

Anyway, resetting it was hard to do it because she was crying and she really started crying once she figured out what was about to happen. It's awful to have to purposefully hurt your child. But, I took her arm, twisted it as I was supposed to and she promptly put it back into "safe" position. If you haven't seen it before, this is arm bent, palm on stomach. They literally can't straighten it out, thus all the screaming involved in straightening it out to reset it. Anyway, we weren't sure if it worked and she knew how much it hurt to move it so she wouldn't even try so we could tell. I thought for a second and then offered her a piece of chocolate. She reached for it. And we knew she was ok. We spent the rest of the trip holding her other hand.

I'll post some pictures from the rest of the trip once I get them uploaded. We had a good time, nursemaid's elbow notwithstanding.