Hospital Heroics

While in San Diego, we had some down time at the condo. It isn't unusual for down time to result in tickle wars around our house. Such a thing happened in San Diego too.

I was laying on the couch being a sleeping giant with the girls trying to tag me then run away. Our 5 year old Kylee tagged the giant but got caught. I was holding her arm preparing to tickle, when her heroic sister came to the rescue. She grabbed Kylee's other hand and tried to pull her away from the giant.

When suddenly a scream erupted.

Kylee was crying on the floor and it took about ten minutes before the crying subsided enough for her to ask what it feels like when you break your arm. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I quickly realized that our plans for the evening had been made.



She laid on the couch for a while so we could see if it would get feeling better. Any time she moved it, she would start crying. So......we looked up the address of the closest children's hospital and off we went.

We arrived to a packed emergency room. Not good. We found some comfortable chairs which was fortunate since we'd be sitting there for a few HOURS. The waiting room was really bad for two reasons:

1) The large amounts of coughing and barf. The surrounding sickness made us uncomfortable. We wanted to take a chemical bath, then put on Hazmat suits.

2) It was sad to see so many children sick or injured. Part of the reason we were there for HOURS is because many serious traumas came in requiring immediate attention. It made me feel thankful for my blessings, for our family's health, and the fact that our visit wasn't a life and death situation.

After a few hours we finally got a chance to talk to a nurse practitioner. She smiled and immediately knew what had happened. Apparently when kids are little, their elbow sockets aren't fully formed, so if you pull on the wrist, the elbow bones lengthen out and a ligament pops between the bones. Fortunately it was an easy fix, and everything was put back where it needed to be in about two seconds.

Kylee was so happy that she was able to use her arm again. But she was even more happy to get some stickers and a popsicle. The funniest part was that a McDonalds was connected to the ER. Seriously - they shared the same door. I thought it was interesting that people could clog their arteries AND be treated for clogged arteries in the same place.