Urgent Care

We got another first out of the way last night: our first after hour's visit to urgent care.

Everything was going well. Gavin was being an exceptionally cute toddler, and I was enjoying a glass of wine and looking forward to reading once he was in bed. Gavin has this new favorite game where he lays down on the floor and I cover him with a blanket and then he figures out how to get out from under the blanket. It's amazing, and I like it almost as much as he does, because I just have to sit on the couch. (As opposed to the run-down-the-driveway game, which involves running up and down the driveway over and over.)

So, it was a pretty great birthday. And then we were getting ready to put Gavin in his bath and Kevin picked him up and Gavin just started crying. And crying and crying. Clearly whatever had hurt him was not getting better.

We got on the phone to his pediatrician who said it sounded like nursemaid's elbow - a pretty common occurrence among toddlers who are still more bendy than firm. The ligament gets trapped between the bones of the elbow joint. It definitely sounds painful.

The doctor said it often fixes itself, or we could come in in the morning or we could take him to an urgent care. Well, when your kid's crying and there's something you can do to make it better, you do it. So we hopped in the car and headed to urgent care. By now, Gavin was a lot calmer, even smiling and laughing with me in the backseat. Though he still wasn't moving his left arm.

The urgent care doctor was great. She let me hold Gavin while she examined his shoulder and elbow. She held up his Elmo doll to make sure he could move it. And she sent us on our way with instructions to give him some Tylenol and alternate warm and cold compresses (for pain and swelling, respectively).

Gavin fell asleep pretty soon after we got home, but Kevin and I were all keyed up and stayed up for a while longer. And then, of course, as soon as the pain medication wore off, Gavin was up and crying again. This was about half an hour before my alarm went off, so we just pulled him into bed with us. Cuddling was enough to get him to sleep for a while longer.

He still wasn't really using his arm this morning, though I think that's just soreness. If it's still bugging him tonight or tomorrow morning, we'll take him in to his regular pediatrician. The urgent care doctor gave him a pretty thorough examination, so I'm pretty sure nothing is broken or still dislocated. It'll probably just take some time to heal completely.