Where is the best place to celebrate your birthday?

The emergency room of course!!

Maia was sliding off our bed yesterday (which is pretty high). After she got down, Mark noticed that she was holding her wrist and that it seemed to be bothering her. I arrived home about 45 minutes later and sure enough... she was not using her left arm at all. Her forearm and hand were cooler than the other one. I was concerned. I hoped we could get her in to extended hours at the clinic, but when I called to make an appointment we were directed to the ED.

So, I threw a baggie of cheerios in my purse for Maia and off we went. It was a busy night in the ED - we'd been there about two hours waiting when Mark said to me, "I thought we'd be home by now." Poor boy... he's got a lot to learn about hanging out in the emergency room with a non-life threatening issue.

Maia was very patient, could tell she wasn't feeling great because she was much "cuddlier" than she usually is. We were roomed shortly after that. The first doctor came in the room to examine her, she was great with Maia. The second doctor was also terrific. But, it was hard to see them manipulate her arm when it obviously was causing her pain. She had x-rays taken which was also really painful since they needed to get specific views. Results? No fracture. The second doctor came back in to give us the good news. He started examining Maia's arm again and performed a quick gentle manipulation of the forearm and elbow. Voila... pain free, although it took a little while for Maia to realize that the pain was gone. Diagnosis? Nursemaid elbow or radial head dislocation. Apparently what happened when she was holding on to the bed on her way down, the traction allowed the ligament holding the radius in place to move and allow the radius to become dislocated. It's common in children under the age of 2-3. And Maia was the second case the doctor had seen yesterday - the other kid was rolling down a hill when it happened.

We were on our way home within three hours of arriving at the ED, enjoying a late night drive through McDonald's dinner. So much for the nice birthday dinner including yummy ice cream cake for Mark. But, all that matters is that Maia is ok - we are thankful for that. She is back to her usual self today and enjoyed sharing ice cream cake with daddy for dinner tonight, although she really would have liked to have it all to herself.

This picture isn't from tonight, but you can see that she loves chocolate. This was Maia's first experience with "licking the spatula." At first, she wasn't sure what to make of it but figured it out pretty quickly! :-)