Yesterday, we were leaving the gym, I was of course doing five things at once, and Max ran like a bullet to the "grownup area" where the people were on the treadmills and elliptical machines. He ran so fast I had to run to catch up with him and grabbed his arm. How many times a day does a mom of a two-year-old have to do this? Well, while we were walking out to the car, I was holding his hand and he kept saying "ow."
When we got to the car, he was holding his arm limp. When I told him to squeeze my finger he squeezed it with the other hand. I was a little suspicious, so I gave him a train to play with and he played with it with one arm. I bribed him: "If you squeeze Mommy's hand you can have a pop-pop (our family's version of "lollipop.") He said "Ok," then squeezed with the other hand. I started thinking maybe I had broken his arm. I remained calm. I called the family doctor and told the nurse "I have a 2 1/2-year-old and he says his arm hurts, but I don't know if it does, or if he's just being 2 1/2." I was hoping the doctor would say "Bring him in and we'll check it out," but no. The answer was "Kids this age don't fake these things, take him to the ER."
Knowing it could be a long wait I picked up Wendy's and headed to the nearest hospital (only five minutes away.) On the way I called my husband and said "I may have broken Max's arm," and he said "I'm coming." I felt like telling him not to come, because I was not freaking out, but I have told him not to come many times and it has not been good.
We got to the ER, and he was the talk of the town. It's not a children's hospital, so nurses from all over the floor came to see him. The triage doctor came in and of course called for and x-ray. When everything sort of calmed down and we were sitting there waiting for the x-ray, and two minutes before my husband walked in, Max decided to sucked his thumb. Yes, the same thumb of the injured arm. I looked at the nurse as if to say "Do you see this?" She just smiled. Then he hopped off my lap, and jumped into daddy's arms, then started to dance. When I asked him about his arm, he said "Hurt all gone."
I am not a hypochondriac. My kid's arm was jacked up. Other people witnessed this. They took him in for x-ray anyway, and of course the arm was not broken. he most likely had something called "Nursemaid's Elbow" where the elbow gets a little bit dislocated and all they do to fix it is turn the hand palm-up and bring it up toward their face. Well, evidently he relocated it himself when he sucked his thumb.
The more people I talk to about this, I realize how common it is. If I had known this, I would have said to him, "I'll give you a pop-pop if you suck your thumb."
