Hospital

Not Evelin; Celeste. Since the whole jaundice thing was a regular admission, this morning marks her first (and hopefully last) trip to the emergency room. She's fine, and I don't think social services will be getting involved, so we're all fine.

The morning started off normal enough: Blueberries and oatmeal for breakfast; reading some books; a trip to the park with her teddy bear, Dee Dee (Celeste loved it when Dee Dee was in the swing); more books; usw. But around 9:30 a.m., Evelin and Celeste were sitting by the stairs playing "Trot, Trot to Boston". As Celeste came back up after the "falling in" portion of the game, she started wailing.

At this point, I really need to point out that while this happened with Evelin, both of us are surprised that I wasn't the one who caused Celeste's injury. In fact, when I relayed the tale to my parents, the first thing they both said to me was: "What did you do to her?"

Back to the wailing. We both figured Celeste had jarred something or that her arm had been squeezed a little too tightly or something, but no amount of comforting helped her. We really knew something was wrong when she didn't want to spin in circles — that usually can stop any tantrum, ease any pain. We called the pediatricians' answering service and I started googling "toddler" and "dislocated shoulder." Within a half hour we'd received our instructions and were on the way to the emergency room.

For the most part, Celeste was pretty calm. She was keeping her left arm limp and so long as we didn't try to feel it or move it or anything, she was uncomfortable but not crying. We read through the books we brought from home, as well as through several that were in the emergency room before finally getting a diagnosis &mash; nursemaid's elbow (elbow subluxation).

Apparently, it's a fairly common malady where a tug on the arm causes a ligament to slip into the elbow joint where it is then pinched by the radius. Fixing it requires the arm to be twisted and the palm brought up to the shoulder and yields almost immediate relief.

Celeste was a prime example of this. There were many tears as the doctor took her hand and twisted the arm into position, but as soon as she let go of Celeste, Celeste snapped her hands into the sign for CAR and made her r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r car sound — she wanted out of there and fast.

After about five minutes, the resident came back in with a sticker in each hand. I didn't realize she was testing Celeste and reached for the stickers myself, earning a reprimand. No stickers for me. But Celeste took one with her right hand and one with her left hand and was pretty happy, although still more than ready to be discharged.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home, which is understandable as it was about 12:30 p.m., well past the usual start time for her nap, and the rest of the afternoon went pretty well until this evening, when Evelin was reading Zoo Parade!. Twice Celeste tried to mimic the animals in the book and to tiptoe like an elephant and she slipped and fell probably due to her arm being a bit weak (something that should pass in a few days).

Technorati tags: elbow hospital