Nurse Maid's Elbow

Andie was climbing up the slide to Evan, who was already at the top. Evan tried to help Andie up the slide. He pulled her by her left forearm. The result was a dislocated elbow for Andie. It took me a little bit to figure out the situation. I didn't see him pull her up. So I have to rely on a 3 year old version of the story. All Andie can get out between screaming is "Ewan hurt." I vagely remembered something that I wanted to call a nun's arm - But it's called nurse maid's elbow. The name came from nurse maid's caring for children. If the child ran off and the nurse jerked his arm, it would commonly dislocate. So anyway, we went to the ER. She had an x-ray of her elbow. Just moving her arm around for the x-ray pretty much fixed it. The doctor moved her arm around a little more and, like magic she was back to normal. She was back to playing and laughing instantly. Kids are amazingly resiliant!

To put this in perspective: Andie got a purple balloon. The balloon happened to pop only minutes after she had received it. She sulked over the balloon for a week. "Purple bayoon pop" (said in the most pitiful voice - repeatedly) Her daddy finally got her a bigger and better purple balloon to make his baby girl happy.

But dislocate her elbow - and nothing. It's like when it was fixed, all memory of the incident was erased. So I guess she can be tough, but not when it comes to her favorite color purple.