Poor little gaffer...

This momentous occasion must be documented...poor little Makeba has a broken arm! She is just over 2 years old and has a half cast on her little elbow. It broke my heart to see her so injured! I guess we had it coming since she made it to 2 without any major falls. I'm grateful that it wasn't her head!

Oh boy, all you parents out there know what it feels like to see your child fall from a height and all you can think is, HEAD INJURY!! INTERNAL BLEEDING!! WE'RE IN PUBLIC, HOW EMBARRASSING! It's silly, I know, but it definitely crossed my mind that people must be looking at me and thinking horrible things about the mother who let her child fall out of a shopping cart and is allowing the child to scream so much. I checked her over and felt the sore elbow, everything seemed in order, just really painful. We had been on our way to the bathroom to change her diaper, so we just had to keep going. I don't even know how we got to the bathroom, but sure enough, I changed her diaper and took her shirt off to see her arm and it swelled up really fast. A nice lady who worked there gave Makeba a little orange teddy bear and I asked her for a bag of ice and that ice seemed to save Makeba, because she fell asleep almost instantly in my arms with that ice on.

We called our family doctor and went in as an emergency appointment. She seemed to cheer up as we waited for him to see us, and even went to play with the toys. I'd given her some arnica (homeopathic medicine for injuries, helps with pain, anxiety, shock, etc) and that seemed to help. The ice really helped. I was running on adrenaline, for sure. All sorts of things went through my head about how I could have prevented it even though I couldn't have. I even berated myself for not force feeding her milk products, which she hates, for the calcium. Good old Annand looked up elbow injuries in toddlers and found that it is one of the most common injuries in young children. I felt better after that.

Anyway, she has to have a half cast on for a month and wear a sling to keep the pressure off her elbow. It took until the end of the next day before we knew she needed the cast because we got the x-ray the first day and then had to wait all night and the next day for the results and for our doctor to consult with the specialist. We have to go to the University hospital cast clinic for a check up in 10 days.

She's already doing so well. She spent the first two days propped up with pillows on the couch watching movies and reading stories and sleeping. Now she plays like usual and actually uses the hand on her injured arm. She's adapting and in good spirits! She thinks it's so cool to be "just like uncle Santosh" (he had a cast this past summer and she made sure to check in with him about his "sore arm" every time she saw him). I know that by Christmas she'll be just fine, cast and all! What an experience!