We had a 2 year pediatrician check up for the little one scheduled for the day before her birthday. She did great, held it together for her shot, and walked out of the doctor’s office with a sticker, confidence, and an overall “okay” feeling about the pediatrician’s office. {Winning.} Later that afternoon, we heard her yelling and crying slightly from her bedroom saying, “Mamma, hurt!” I rushed back to her room, and she was laying on her bed holding her arm. When I asked her how she hurt her arm, she said she rolled on it. She didn’t fall off the bed and wasn’t jumping or roughhousing. So odd. We decided to give her the evening to forget about the boo-boo, because often a little distraction goes a long way in forgetting what was hurt. However, she didn’t sleep well that night, and woke up on her birthday still complaining about her hurt elbow/arm.
I sang her Happy Birthday, and she kindly stopped me mid-lyric and told me to use her full name, rather than just her first name in the song. ;) We woke up, and I made her some pancakes with sprinkles and whip cream. She ate the whole thing with her left {non-dominant} hand, smiling one second and then crying the next about her hurt arm.
Our pediatrician squeezed us in that morning after breakfast, and he originally thought she had nursemaid’s elbow. However, after he tried to physically adjust the elbow, she didn’t get better. Typically, after about 15 minutes, the pain will be gone, but this wasn’t the case.
Our pediatrician scheduled us an appointment with a orthopedic specialist for the next day. In the meantime, we scrapped our plans for a fun morning at Young’s {a local ice cream, farm, putt-putt, restaurant place.} We instead, stayed home and watched our two-year-old hold her arm at her side, not using it for any reason. She cried and didn’t want to open any of her gifts. {Her big gift was a children’s table set, which she actually does like…just not at the time.} Poor thing. It was pitiful to watch. Later the evening of her birthday, she started to perk up and even used her right arm to bat around a balloon. We thought maybe the adjustment did the trick, but it was short lived as she was up all night in pain and didn’t use the arm in the morning.
The orthopedic specialist took x-rays of her arm and saw no breaks in her bones. He examined her arm, moving it in different positions, watching her grimace at a few spots. He told Eugene & me that typically they put a cast on the toddler even if they don’t see a fracture. It’s very much a precautionary approach. He said that sometimes fractures show up on x-rays after they remove the cast 2-3 weeks later. Her bones are so little, it’s really hard to see if anything is broken.
I wanted to cry {okay, maybe I did cry for a quick second when the Dr. left the room}, but the little one was super brave and did so great with it all. She didn’t cry for the x-rays, and held really still the whole time the cast was being placed on her arm. I was so impressed with her!
We asked her what color she wanted off of a swatch page, and she picked the brightest color possible: florescent, high-lighter yellow. She picked it 3 times. Finally, in an effort to try to dissuade her from the brightest possible color, Eugene said “how about the pink?!” And she surprisingly jumped onboard happily. She’ll have this lovely pink thing on her arm for 2.5 weeks, and we’re hoping after that she’ll be good-to-go and cast-free.
All things considered, she is handling it all really well. Once the cast was on, she was a different little girl. We could tell she was no longer in pain. She’s only had it a couple days, but she is not letting it slow her down too much. Sleeping is tough though. She likes to sleep on her belly with her arms tucked under her, so a hard cast is far from ideal. I spent the first night on the couch with her, and following nights have been spent side by side with her. Nights have been the toughest for sure.
I’m so proud of how well she’s handling it all. Her cast is completely waterproof. She can swim, take a bath, even soak her whole arm in water – pretty awesome. The cast is really heavy, so it’s throwing her balance off and causes her to fall more often. She shows her “big band-aid” off to everyone around, and for the most part, it doesn’t seem to be holding her back too much.
She’s such a brave, resilient little girl. Kids are really amazing. All this for just simply rolling on her arm! It’s so odd. I think we’ll just pretend her birthday is another day later this month so she can actually enjoy the day. Let’s all just pray that the cast is off for good in 2.5 weeks and we can celebrate!
