David and I were wrestling earlier today.. much earlier. He went down for his nap, and a half hour later wasn’t sleeping yet. I went up, and he just seemed so out of it and tired; I read him a story and left the room again. About two and a half hours later when he woke up, he was still lethargic and not moving much, and after a quick bit of poking and prodding we realized his left shoulder hurt to the point he didn’t want to move it. Call the pediatrician, he said it could be one of a couple things. Either something called “nursemaid’s elbow” which kids can even do to themselves, and requires a quick re-set of the elbow and he’d be fine. Or it could be a soft-tissue thing, either a muscle pulled or a tendon stretched. Or, a broken clavicle. Oh great.
Shortly after calling the pediatrician’s answering service, and before he called us back, we gave David a dose of Motrin – figuring, if it’s an inflammation, that’ll help too. Well, by the time the pediatrician called us back, David went from not moving his left arm at all (and crying if you tried to move it at the shoulder) to moving it gingerly, but still not raising it much. So the doctor said we could either keep going as we are and see how he does, or take him to the ER and get x-rays to see what’s going on definitely. We decided we’d eat dinner, and then head off to the ER. Big fucking mistake.
We get there, and the place is packed. Both with people obviously sick, and people just being obnoxious (a group of 7 or so people taking over the childrens’ play area, and oh yeah they have no children there). We get triaged, and Stephanie takes Emily off to feed her (a nurse took them to a conference room so they’d have some privacy), David gets checked in and we go to the back. For the most part, he’s okay – but he wants “mama,” he’s tired, and he’s not that content to just sit still all the time. He never is, but when he’s tired, he gets even more rammy, and by this point we’re at almost an hour and a half past bedtime.
Stephanie finally comes back, and David’s okay for a little bit, but then he starts getting cranky. We try to console him, and get him to calm down – at one point even turning off the lights and trying to convince him to lay down and sleep – but nothing is working. He’s screaming his head off, and nothing is making it better. Instead, he’s into a full-blown hissy fit now: kicking, screaming, slapping whatever he can reach (including mommy and daddy) and not calming down for anything, even trying to thrash himself out of my arms and onto the floor. At one point, I warn Stephanie that it’s about to get a bit louder, and I bellow at him to knock it off. It worked! … for about 30 seconds. Sometimes scaring the crap out of him will do the trick, and make him realize that we’re here to help and comfort him, not torture him by keeping him awake all night. Oh well, so much for that idea, now what? I try picking him up and bouncing him around, moving around the space (not really big enough to call it a “room”) but that’s not helping, now he can just kick me in the stomach directly. I finally say to Stephanie, “Pack up your stuff, we’re leaving.” At this point, he’s so inconsolable and cranky that we’re not going to be able to hold him still for an x-ray even if they came to get us immediately; and we’ve only seen a nurse so far, who just took the same story I told the last two people who asked. Doctor has yet to come by, and then he’d have to order x-rays (if he felt it necessary), then radiology would come by, then we get the x-rays taken, then the doctor comes back to look at them.. fuck this shit.
By this point, he’s flailing around enough that if his arm still hurt, he’s not showing it at all. By the time we get home and get him dressed for bed, yeah he’s favoring his right over his left still, but not nearly as much (and he’s not crying about his left – I was even able to move it up over his head without him either wincing in pain or pulling back from me.) So we’ll call the pediatrician, leave them a message about the evening’s festivities, and if he wants to see x-rays then he can tell us some place to go get them done. Preferably in the early afternoon.