First Trip To A & E As Parents

I had my first trip to A & E tonight since becoming a parent. Basically, Burton - accidentally I might add- yanked Jenson's left arm really hard like he was one of those Stretch Armstrong dolls because he was trying to get his brother on to the sofa! I was in the same room, I had been into the kitchen to turn the oven on having left the pair of them laughing and playing together. As I walked back into the lounge I suddenly saw Burton pulling his brothers arm quite hard, and as I told him to stop, Jenson started crying and Burton quickly let go.

Now Burton has made Jenson cry many times but it's usually only a few tears and after a few minutes peace is resumed and all is forgotten. Except tonight Jenson kept on crying and more tears were streaming down his face. I felt a bit sick then, and immediately I dreaded that his arm or shoulder was damaged in some way. I tried to move it and it was quite limp and seemed floppier than it should be! Bloody hell I thought, it was 18:40 and Jon wasn't going to be home until half past seven what was I going to do as I didn't have the car. Meanwhile, Jenson was still crying and although a little bit of chocolate did calm him down for a few minutes, I have never known him to cry for so long from a Burton related event!

Once Jon arrived home we bundled everyone in the car and I was dropped off at the hospital with Jenson, while Burton was taken to his grandparents. I registered the accident at 19:40 and we didn't get seen by a member of the triage team until an hour and a half later!

It turns out that luckily Jenson did not have a dislocated anything but he did have an injury called some, a pulled elbow or, as I discovered when I googled it when I got home, nursemaids elbow. This is something I had never heard of before yet apparently it is very common in under 5 year olds. It is the dislocation of the elbow joint caused by a sudden pull on the extended pronated arm, such as by an adult tugging on an uncooperative child, or swinging the child by the arms during play. The technical term for the injury is radial head subluxation.

So there you go I learnt something new!

Anyway, after being given some calpol the doctor had to extend his arm out fully and then fold it back on itself to allow his elbow joint to click back into place. Of course this brought on lots of tears but it had to be done. We then had to wait for 15 minutes to see if Jenson would use his left arm to ensure it was cured, but he wouldn't reach out for any of the toys that we tried offering him (he was very tired at this point though).I told the doctor that if we had some chocolate buttons that would be great as he would probably teach out for those with both arms! The doctor said he didn't have any of those but would go and see if he had any chocolate in his office, and when he returned he was carrying a quality street (dark) chocolate orange sweet. Well Jenson reached for it ok with his now better arm and stuffed the entire chocolate in his may and ate it! We all laughed !

He feel asleep in the car on the way home sat cuddled in to me on the back seat and didn't wake up even when I put him into his sleeping bag and down into his cot. I looked down at him peacefully asleep, his arm back to normal and I felt a huge sigh of relief. I thought about how tonight had been mine and Jon's first trip to A & E as parents, and I wondered how many more times we would have to visit during our boys childhood and teenage years.

I was also was glad to have my baby back safe and sound and home where he belonged - peace for him and for his Daddy and I!

I am linking this up to this weeks The Gallery where the theme is At Peace