When It Rains It Pours...

Do you ever feel like just when you're about the recover from the last thing... wham! Something else sneaks up and gets ya?! Well, Savannah was starting to recover from her upper respiratory infection, and then something new cropped up. We went out today while some people were viewing our house, and Savannah insisted that she wanted to walk (surprise?!). Well, being the good mom I thought I was, I held onto her hand so she wouldn't fall on the pavement and skin up her knees, hands, etc. Well, Savannah did wipe out, and I caught her by holding tightly to her hand. Apparently, thats what you should never do! Savannah screamed and cried, and continued throughout the afternoon. I of course thought that she just didn't feel good still because she has been pretty grouchy lately anyway. After several hours of crying off and on, I finally put her in the bathtub to get her quiet because she always loves to take a bath! After I put her in the tub, she just kind of sat there without playing. I picked up a few toys and tried to get her to play and she took them with her right hand. I noticed her left hand was laying across her stomach and tried to hand her a toy in that hand. She wouldn't take it. And then I realized... she couldn't move her arm! I yelled for Darren to come up the stairs and told him about how she wouldn't move her arm, and he tried to get her to move it too, and she refused. When he took it and moved it himself, she screamed. I called her pediatrician and he recommended that we take her straight to the ER. So, we did. As it turns out, her elbow was dislocated, apparently a common condition in babies learning to walk, and its actually called "nursemaid's elbow." It happens quite often when a parent is holding a child's hand and they fall , and the parent doesn't turn their hand loose. It is a result of their joints being loose as it is. They reduced the dislocation (very painful to watch!) and then said she should move her arm immediately, but she didn't. In fact, they kept us in the ER for quite some time and she still refused to move her arm. So, they did an x-ray, which turned out fine, so they put her in a sling and are sending her to an orthopedic specialist on Monday. They aren't sure why she still refuses to use her arm. From my research on the internet, it looks like 90% of children move their arm within 30 minutes after having it fixed, and if they don't, it usually means they tore a ligament in the elbow, or that the dislocation isn't fully back in the socket. So, you can definitely pray for us as this will be a very exhausting weekend and we hope to get everything fixed on Monday! The poor little girl has been through a lot this week, and her parents are pretty tired too!