Be careful playing those swinging games with your children!

 

Photograph: Alexander Chow-Stuart

I was playing with our almost two year old daughter last night, swinging her around by her hands in a whirl that always makes her look blissful...when I heard a pop!

I knew something in her left arm had changed and she started holding her wrist and saying, "Ouchy," and crying a little (very little, brave girl).

We called our pediatrician, Dr Jay Gordon, to ask if we should take her to ER and he said that she had dislocated her elbow - the pain gets referred to the wrist for some reason.

He tried to talk us through popping it back in by pulling and rotating her arm but after several attempts, we were too worried about hurting her and said we would take her to ER to do it.

Dr Gordon called back a few minutes later to tell us that our local ER had a 4-6 hour wait (everyone is sick at the moment) and that he would meet us at his office at 8pm to do it for us.

So we drove to Santa Monica and Dr Gordon popped Paradise's arm back with one move. She didn't even cry. We are so grateful to Dr Gordon for his kindness.

Dr Gordon said that at her age (almost two) some joints dislocate very easily and we should be prepared for more in future although thankfully our six year old son, Hudson, has never dislocated his and is now a little safer as he is older.

We are all going to take it easy today...and no more swinging games, which is a shame because Paradise especially loved them on the beach this summer.

(A friend just told me that when one of her daughters was Paradise's age, she was making a swing between her knees and her daughter suddenly slipped backwards and smacked her head on the ground, pushing her bottom teeth right through her lip. Fortunately there was no concussion...but there were also no more swinging games!)