From: cathy@octel.com (Cathy Kearns)
Subject: Re: I dislocated his arm!
Organization: Octel Communications Inc., Milpitas Ca.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:28:40 GMT

In article <3181@ncr-mpd.FtCollinsCO.NCR.COM> sdavis@khan.ColoSpgs.NCR.COM (Susan Davis) writes:
>
>Well, I found out the hard way how easy it is to accidently pull Ryan's
>elbow too hard.  

Boy, did I find this out too!  I really wasn't aware you could even
do this, as I remember games where our uncles would swing us around
by our arms, and though there were twenty or so of us first cousins,
not one had this problem.  However, my story...

My husband was having irregular heart beats, and the doctor said
to go home and relax and take these pills, and if calm relaxation
doesn't do it for you, we'll just check you into the hospital 
tomorrow and zap that heart back into normal.  Now, imagine a
very scarred daddy, who had never been in the hospital before,
trying to relax.  Well, I said I'd help by taking Alison out for
awhile.  So me and Alison (about 19 months old) walked over to the
local indoor mall to run around.  She wanted to go up and down the
escalator, and we normally do this with dad holding the stroller,
so here I was, holding the stroller and she was standing on the
step, and she didn't look like she was going to step off, so I
pulled her arm to help her off, and whamo!  Well, she calmed down
after awhile of me holding her, but it's now getting dark outside
(around 8:30pm in the summertime) and I'm trying to figure out 
how to take her home to get the car and go to the doctor without
my husband panicking (yeah, right).  So I put her in the stroller,
and she starts to whimper.  By the time I get home, she's quiet,
but she's not going to move that arm for nothing.  And of course,
daddy's still awake...and wants to know why she's not moving that
arm.  Well, he did panic, but at least he didn't have a heart 
attack.  And the doctor on call was willing to go to his office
and meet us there.  (As it happens, this is one of his favorite
things!)  All the way to the doctor Alison is sitting in her
carseat singing songs and doing the hand motions with only one
arm, I could've cried.  Anyway, I told the doctor what happened.
He said that was very common.  What wasn't common was the parents
telling the doctor what happened, so then the doctor couldn't
pop the arm back in.  (That's right, the doctor just bends the
arm while holding the tendon and the arm pops right back in.)
If you don't tell the doctor what happened, he has to assume its
broken, and has to start with other stuff first.  It took the doctor
less than 1 minute to pop the arm back in, and then two minutes to
cox her into grabing the toys (two, one for each arm, boy this
doctor is smart!).  Once she grabs the toys, she realizes her arm
doesn't hurt anymore, and is all happy.

Well, the whole story does have a happy ending.  My husband did have
to get zapped, but then his heart was fine too.  (Instant medicine, wow!)
And, between mistakes and well meaning friends, we've had Alison's
arm go out 3 more times. (Once I popped it back in, once the same
doctor popped it back in, once the emergency room doctor popped it
back in.  And he was scarred, I guess just the day before he wasn't
able to pop his own daughter's arm back in, and had to call the hospital's
orthopedic surgeon to do it.  I'm glad we could give him his confidence
back.)  Everytime she was better within minutes.  And even called
our friend on the phone who was playing airplane with her and told
her not to worry, she was all better, and she knew she didn't mean
to give her an Owie.. she was just trying to let her have fun.  And she
still liked her.  Ah, life goes on....

							Cathy