I found myself in A and E with Rachel this week. I am amazed, how can we be 10 years in and fourth time round and this ‘Pulled Elbow’ phenomenon be new to us. As parents who ‘rough house’ with our children on a fairly regular basis, doing all the should-nots of swinging them round by their arms, or having them walk up us and somersault over – they love all that – how has this not happened before? Even just through another possible cause, of being tugged along by the hand if in a hurry. Actually, I am guilty of none of these things – in this instance anyway - I have witnesses.
Rachel did not cry immediately afterwards, so I am not certain it was this, but Rachel was holding my hands and let her legs go floppy, as little ones sometimes do. I lowered her to the floor and carried on what I was doing (tallking probably). A minute later came the tears and her cradling her hand.
By dinner time, it was still bothering her, and because crying over an injury is so out of character, we decided to take a trip to Casualty.
As is always the case when you seek medical advice, all symptoms seemed to instantly disappear and she laughed, sang and chatted practically the whole way to the hospital. I was only reassured I wasn’t over reacting when she leaned back in her car seat, closed her eyes and announced “I sleep now, it ‘urting.”
Once in hospital, she refused to wiggle her fingers and just looked on, possessively holding back her own hand, while Emilia, myself and the assessment nurse carried out various pantomimes of wiggling and pointing our own fingers and toes in encouragement.
To the question, “Does it hurt?” Rachel aggressively snapped the answer “No!”
“Can we see it?” – “No!”
“Are you going to co-operate at all?” – “No!”
We eventually got her to point her finger, with no apparent difficulty, leaving me feeling like a fraud. I was convinced they’d send us away, adamant as she was, that it didn’t hurt. They recognised her reluctance to use it though, so she went through to the next round, with a sticker.
Emilia was being lovely with Rachel, making her laugh and reading her stories, as we sat in the cramped little waiting area, whilst I wondered what disease we were likely to come home with.
Another professional soon came to examine Rachel and we were led to another little cubicle where her refusal to give up her hand for inspection continued and the nurse/doctor lady rushed off to get her book of stickers. She explained her suspicions of Pulled Elbow. (It is not quite the same as a dislocation but means one of the bones in the elbow is not lined up.) However, it was just a matter of manipulating it back to its proper place.
The sticker distraction began. She was offered a lion, for being brave “No!, a monkey, a snail, a butterfly. She refused all of them, and not politely.
In the end, we gave Emilia the sticker and the nurse, Rachel’s arm, ignoring the protests, and it was a little twist, a little click, audible only to the doctor/nurse, and job done, she is as right as rain, without even a spoonful of Calpol.
After a few minutes back in the waiting room while we watched Rachel push beads round a coloured wire track with the hand she’d previously been nursing, and we were all free to go.
In the car on the way home, I was thanking Emilia for being such a big help and so kind and patient.
“Good Girl, Belia” puts in Rachel for good measure.
“Well you weren’t” I tell her “You were horrid”
“I not horrid” she replies “I, Rachel”.
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