Dr. Daddy saves the day

Here's Katie with her Grandma Dima and Grandpa Dipa on the lawn in Ogunquit. The place has the great lawn to sit out on and watch the water. At least it was sunny on Monday. We took her to the beach before we left. I can't say that she was as thrilled with the beach as she was on Friday, but it was still fun.

Here's a pic. The shirt Katie's wearing I bought in Hawaii for Robin when I was pregnant with Katie.


The ride home was fine. Katie is very into saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" - incessantly, bordering on obsessively. The entire ride home (when she wasn't sleeping) was "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Daddy. Daddy. Mommy. Daddy. Mommy. Daddy." To tell you the truth, it's not much different when we're out of the car.

Monday night, I was getting ready to give her a bath and she fell into the empty bathtub. I didn't see it happen and I thought that she was crying because she couldn't get out of the tub. So I gave her a bath and she was still crying - she screams in baths not at home so maybe it was a carryover from our travels or she was cranky from the long drive. But she wasn't moving her arm much. After I got Katie into her pajamas, I noticed that she tried to suck her left thumb, but she couldn't move her arm high enough. She was still crying and obviously in pain and I knew she had hurt her arm.

I called our neighbor who's a radiologist and has twins Katie's age. She said elbow fractures are common at this age and we should go to the ER. So I called our pediatrician, and it's our pediatrician on call and because there's no visible bruising or broken skin, she thinks Katie's symptoms are more like a "nursemaid's elbow" than a fracture. This is a dislocated elbow that most often occurs when a toddler falls holding onto something (like an adults hand) or someone pulls them up a step or curb by the arm. It doesn't usually happen from falling. It's common and easy to fix.

Katie is quite obviously in pain - she's crying hysterically or snuggling me tight and sucking her right thumb. Dr. Sanford says we can go to the ER or we can try to fix it ourselves, in case it is nursemaid's elbow. If it's not, then we'll have to go to the ER anyway. Having been to the ER with the barrette incident, I really don't want to do that, but the idea of pushing on my screaming daughter's arm that might be broken and causing her more pain was very scary. So Dr. Daddy comes to save the day. My brave husband takes over. The dr. instructs him to twist and turn and move Katie's arm and he feels a pop. About 30 seconds later, Katie starts running her fingers over her favorite stuffed puppy. I knew she was fine. Five minutes later, she's up and running around and chatting away. It was like night and day and so instantaneous.

Peter made me call him Dr. the rest of the night...