We went to see a surgeon today...

T-minus three days, and we were spending the day today (yesterday at this point, but it's so late or early rather in the morning) at the orthopedic surgeon's office at Cook Children's Medical Center in downtown Fort Worth. Why, you ask? Well...

Kayden and her friend (whom I will leave nameless) were playing outside on Tuesday, when she let out a horrible shriek. I knew what it was right away, because she was protecting her arm. Long story short, her friend had twisted or pulled her arm and hurt her. This was particulary worrisome, because it was the same arm that had been pulled out of socket about two years ago...

In brief: A teacher at her school went psycho and yanked her up by her arm and pulled her elbow out of socket. We filed a police report, it went to the D.A., then the grand jury, and they decided not to pursue the case any further, because they could not prove malice. We had the bitch on camera. Whatever. Anyway, that was what flashed through my minds-eye.

To continue... she came home and didn't want me to do anything but lay on the couch with her and later in her bed and watch Monsters, Inc. I would try to comfort her and she said she was hurting and didn't want me to touch her. Every once in a while, she would assure me that I didn't need to take her to the doctor, because her arm was fine. In the next breath, she would cry and tell me that it hurt. Come to find out, she just didn't want me to take her to have a shot. I so remember that fear. My pediatrician was a she/he.. I still don't know what it was to this day, and it wore white nurse shoes. Oh, the scars from that... anyway... So we watched the movie, and I moved to the couch out of her bed, when she fell asleep. 15 minutes later she was on the couch with me telling me to get OFF of the couch, because I was in her way and hurting her arm.. I WAS THERE FIRST! Oh... I'm the adult here... So, she informed me that it would be o.k. if I slept on the floor. Perfect, the floor. I thought at least then she might go to sleep. Oh, if I had only been so lucky. Bless her heart, she literally whimpered every two or three minutes. She just couldn't get comfy. I can't imagine how badly it hurt.

So, this morning John and I discussed the situation, and we decided that we were torn. She stubs her toe, and it turns into an ordeal so that she can milk it for all the attention away from Kylee that she thinks it's worth. So we were thinking some of the whining might be that, but then she told us that it didn't hurt anymore. She wasn't even moving. Her eyes weren't open, but here is this little voice, "my arm doesn't hurt. I don't need to go to the doctor..." John and I just laughed. She always has to get her two-cents in. So, I took her to school and told her teacher what was going on. It wasn't 30 minutes later, and I had an email. Kayden wasn't using her arm, and she was upset. She was most upset about the fact that I was taking her to the doctor. That was much worse than the pain she was in, apparently.

The pediatrician tried to put it back into place, and he was unsuccessful. We got bad parent points, because we waited to get her in until the next morning. She hurt it around 9 PM. Not sure we should relinquish our parent card for that, but whatever. He told me that with "Nurse Maid's Elbow" (google it), you have to reset it within 4 hours or it becomes more difficult as time goes on. Having said that, he did tell me that she seemed to have been severely injured, though, so he wasn't sure that theory would have really applied to her. At any rate, he wasn't comfortable trying to reset it any further, so off we went to the orthopedic surgeon. Beautiful. I was pissed, stressed, heart-broken for Kayden, and selfishly hoping that we wouldn't have to make a million different doctor visits to fix her poor arm. My hoping wasn't all in vain. The orthopedic surgeon visit was actually a piece of cake.

The ortho took pictures of her bones, as I explained it to her, and he assured me that she was all in one piece and her friend hadn't broken anything, but had twisted or pulled it pretty hard. He gave me two options. Option one was to attempt to reset it, but he said he really didn't want to do that. She was still traumatized from the pediatricians failed attempt, and he said he didn't want to put her through that. Option two was the winner: we would cast her arm from her hand to the middle of her upper-arm, and then come back in two weeks to remove it. We walked out of there... well, I did with a monkey sporting a purple cast, and feeling much better. As soon as the cast was on, she said it didn't hurt her any more.

At least it is in my color scheme. :-)