Back Again

We took Ella to the ER on Saturday afternoon. This makes for her second trip in her two years of life =( Paul was walking to the car from the grocery store and she fell down while holding his hand. He felt a pop and she started screaming immediately! He called me (I was finishing up my shopping with Micah) and told me we needed to take her to the ER. I couldn't even get her in her car seat because she was screaming so bad! She was holding her left arm next to her body and would freak out if we touched it. Fortunately we were really close to the hospital so it didn't take us long to get there. When they checked us in the nurse said she was 99.9% sure Ella had Nursemaid's Elbow. This is a very common injury in kids aged 1-3 which results in the elbow joint getting dislocated. It apparently feels like when you hit your funny bone but it's constant. It's really easy to get it back into place but unfortunately the Dr. couldn't when he tried. So, many tears later they decided to x-ray just to make sure it wasn't anything else. That of course put Ella through more trauma since her poor little arm hurt so bad! They had to put her arm in so many positions that she was screaming the whole time. I stayed in the room with Micah so luckily I didn't have to see her but Paul said it was very sad. I guess the nurses were trying to distract her by having her say "Cheese!" when they took the x-rays so she was crying her little eyes out while saying "Cheese!" poor little thing. There was a really nice nurse who went and bought Ella a pack of M&M's from the vending machine and brought them to her when she was all done. When Ella came back to the room she was holding her arm and her handful of stickers she had gotten. Th x-rays came back clear so the Dr. thought maybe she sprained her arm. She did one last attempt to see if she could set her elbow back in and while she was doing it felt a "pop!" A few minutes later Ella was using her arm again to decorate herself (and daddy) in stickers. We were so relieved it was an easy fix! They told us that now that she has had this she is more likely to have recurrences until she is around 4 (GREAT!) They told us they have a family that comes in about 6 times a year to get their kids elbow fixed. I'm really hoping we don't have to go through this that much. We saw how they popped it back I'm just not sure if I will be able to do it when she's screaming in pain =( I found out a friend from church's daughter has the same problem. She has had it happen 4 times (she is 2.5) and the first time was when she was 6 months old! So I guess we can start a Nursemaid's elbow support group =) We are glad Ella is back to her happy self and our so thankful God has put this precious girl in our lives......bad elbows and all!

Daddy holding Ella, she is holding her hurt arm

A few minutes after they popped her elbow back. She is a happy girl again!