Kolton's Left Elbow

(warning: really long story)

Wednesday night we went up to the church to watch Brady play basketball. During Brady's second game, Kolton started getting rowdy with his friend who had also come to watch his dad play. So, I got up to go over to him and hold his hand until I got off of the phone and could talk to him. As I was holding his hand, he tried to escape and pulled himself away, falling to the floor. I was still holding his hand and heard a pop and then he started screaming. I got off of the phone and tried talking to him to figure out what was wrong. He just kept crying and just looking at me with the scared look in his eyes. I took off his coat and tried figuring out what it was (I thought the pop was just his wrist, which has happened before but I was quickly realizing I was wrong..). He just kept saying his elbow hurt. Everytime I'd touch it he'd scream louder. So, I made Brady meet me out in the hallway (even though he was in the middle of a game). He came out and took Kolton from me and kept trying to get Kolton to move his arm. He wouldn't. He just kept crying saying it hurt. Even if you'd touch his fingers he'd shreak out in pain. After like 10 minutes we decided we should probably take him to the doctor. So, we headed to the ER. Once we got in the car, Kolton had stopped his crying and would only cry when his arm was moved. If he could keep it perfectly still he was fine. We got to the hospital and we went pretty much right back. We were called immediately into the nurses office where she asked us some questions. It was so sad when I had to put him down on the scale to weigh him. He just screamed and cried. I felt so bad! Then, after about a 2 minute wait we went back in to a room. The hospital was packed. We had a long walk past all the regular rooms, down a hall, and back in to another room where there was just a bunch of beds divided by curtains. That walk was hard to do while holding him and trying to keep his arm from moving. It just broke my heart everytime I'd take a wrong step and he'd cry.


I laid him on his bed and the doctor came right in! Seriously, this was the most time efficient ER visit I've ever had! He asked me what happened twice, asked me what I heard twice, pointed and touched Kolton on both of his arms at different points to see where it hurt then looked to Brady and I and said, "Now, what I'm about to do is going to be extremely painful for him for about 30 seconds, but after about a minute he should stop crying and within 5 he should be back to normal giving high fives etc." Brady got up and left the room quickly. ;) I had a really hard time composing myself. I immediately started getting teary eyed and tried to pull myself together so I could console Kolton. The doctor (who was VERY nice) took his elbow and squeezed it in one hand and used his other hand to move Kolton's left arm up and down really fast like 4 or 5 times. And the doctor was right--Kolton SCREAMED loud when he did it. It hurt him so bad that he actually wet his pants when he did it (so sad). As the doctor left the room he told Brady that he had felt it pop back in to place so he should be good. The doctor said that he thought, from what I explained, he had nursemaid's elbow and that by popping it back in place he'd be fixed. If he wasn't better in 5 minutes, though, then they'd have to do an x-ray because it might be broken.

Well, after about 2 minutes, Kolton would squeeze my finger in his hand, then he'd touch his nose with his finger, and then by 5 minutes after he was popped back in place, he'd give high fives. It took a lot of coaxing at first to get him to move his arm. He thought for sure it would hurt but after he was able to squeeze my finger and Brady and I got all excited for him, he kind of let out a little smile and was willing to do more for us. It was crazy how quickly he returned back to his normal self. When we came in the hospital he was just staring off in to oblivion, not smiling or talking or anything. When we came out he was talking my ear off and telling me everything that happened. He even said, as we walked past the doctor to leave, that "That guy is a nice guy. He made my arm feel all better." I'm glad it wasn't broken and the doctor was able to fix it so quickly and easily. They gave us a prescription for Loritab for him, but with some tylenol he seems to be doing fine. The doctor said if it had happened to one of us we'd be laying in bed in pain/really sore, so we need to keep him calm for the next two days because even though he might think he's all better and doesn't complain about it hurting, he needs to rest it to make sure it completely heals. So, that's what I've been trying to do today. :) (Haven't been very successful!) I'm just grateful for such a great doctor who was there to help us. How lucky are we to have doctors at our disposal at any time of day?