Nursemaid's elbow

Melina took her first trip to the Emergency Room on the day after Thanksgiving. We were on a walk with Jeff and my parents, and she was horsing around with Jeff, holding on to his arm and collapsing on the ground. She did this one too many times and twisted her forearm out of whack. It was a pretty unpleasant experience for us all. She couldn't, or wouldn't, move her forearm. After driving home to Portland from Monmouth (during which she napped, luckily), I called her doctor, who diagnosed the problem as "nursemaid's elbow." It's a common injury for the 2-5 set, sometimes caused by a parent (or nursemaid) yanking on a recalcitrant child's arm. The doctor described a maneuver for me to do (holding the arm at the elbow and rotating the hand), but all this did was cause more pain, so we ended up taking Melina to the E.R. around 7:00 p.m. Luckily, the hospital here has a really nice separate E.R. for children, so there were no scary bleeding people to traumatize her. Also, the doctor who treated her ended up being an old neighbor of ours with kids of his own who suffer from nursemaid's elbow. After five arm X-rays, Doctor Scott did a maneuver on Melina's arm - correctly this time - and it popped right back into place. Fifteen seconds later she said "Oh! I feel better now!" - And she's been fine ever since. I've studied up on it and how to fix it in case it happens again.