Pop!

I recently filled out a couple of online surveys in my on-going quest to acquire as many MyPoints as I possibly can. I always love it when they give a list of occupational areas and ask me to indicate in which ones I or someone in my household works. I happily checked off education, food service, recreation, transportation, electronics, entertainment, fashion and medicine. I am often hesitant to check off that last one, not wanting to pass myself off as someone with much more education and experience than I actually have, until one of my more latent talents suddenly comes into use.

A few months ago I was in the sporting goods store with JT perusing lacrosse equipment . I was very pregnant (ie pregnant-brained) and I had the then 18 month old Nathan with me. In my quest for the equipment I admit I allowed Nate to wander off a bit out of my range (it was a small private store - we're not talkin' Dick's here). When I tracked him down, I had an armful of something in one hand and a running, giggling Nate who I scooped up with my other hand by one armpit. The instant I did it, I heard a pop and Nathan began to scream. To make a long story short, several hours in the Patient First and an x-ray later he was fully recovered from what was diagnosed as Nursemaid's Elbow. It was a terrible experience, though, as the doctor for some reason made me wait with Nathan screaming in my ear for 2 hours . He diagnosed the problem immediately, the solution took about 10 seconds and I have no idea what the other 1 hour, 59 minutes and 50 seconds were supposed to accomplish except to get me extremely frustrated and leave my poor son wallowing in pain.

So my next trip to the pediatrician, I mentioned it to her. I had Ben along and the dear woman showed me the 10 second procedure to fix the problem. She apologized for our ordeal and said if she had been on call she would have talked me through it on the phone. She warned me that once a nursemaid's elbow, always a nursemaid's elbow and sent me on my way feeling empowered for any elbow owie eventuality.

Sure enough, twice since then Nathan has had this problem. We have learned that when he starts screaming irrationally for longer than a few minutes and refuses to move his left arm we are dealing with a bit more than an age-appropriate temper tantrum. Last night he had a very loud tubby when Adora finally brought him to me wet, naked and wrapped in a towel and said, "I think it's his arm again. He hasn't moved it during his whole tubby." It took me three tries (the first two were admittedly timid attempts) but I finally held, supported and twisted exactly right and heard the tell-tale "pop" sound as the elbow snapped back into alignment. On the one hand, it really creeps me out to have to do this to my son but on the other hand I do believe it makes me unequivocally qualified to check off medical among my many vocational areas.