Tales from the Vacation: initiated

A couple months ago, when we were driving to spend the summer in Texas, we stopped in New Orleans. We had been in the car for about 12 hours that day leading up to our arrival at our sweet, sweet, pricelined hotel. The downside to staying in a downtown New Orleans 4 star hotel was having to pay an arm and leg to valet park our car across the street. I mean literally, 10 steps away and we had to deal with valets constantly. This proved fateful.

So we got to the hotel, dropped our bags in the room, then went back downstairs to yes, get back in the car, to go visit our best friend, Juliann. The driveway where we were standing, waiting, to receive our car was fairly busy and narrow. To keep her safe, I was holding tightly to Lily's hand but the poor gal just wanted to be free and run. She was getting less and less patient and she suddenly jerked and plopped herself down to the ground in frustration. Unfortunately I was still holding tightly to her hand and I heard/felt a big POP sound in her arm. She started crying immediately and I got that sick feeling a momma gets when something has just gone wrong regarding her child. She stopped crying shortly after but I could tell something was still off. She wouldn't use her arm after that and cried when we got her in/out of her carseat.

Brian and I tried to convince ourselves that she would be fine in the morning. We gave her some Tylenol and put her to bed when we got back to the hotel. She slept for a few hours and then at about 2am woke up screaming, tired, disoriented, and in pain. It quickly became clear she wasn't going back to sleep. "Find me a children's hospital," I said to Brian who hurriedly found one using his iphone. Brian, in his groggy state, also googled 'my child's arm is hurt' and deduced Lily had nursemaid's elbow.

At 3:30 am I had to disturb the valet who was comfy on a couch in the hotel lobby to go get my car. Armed with a gps, I set out on a grand middle of the night tour of New Orleans I wished I wasn't having, to find the New Orleans Children's Hospital. Even though I was one of two customers at the ER that morning, they were of course, in no hurry so it took about an hour and half for a 2 minute doctor's visit to assess, Yes she has nursemaid's elbow, a common dislocation. The doc then easily corrected it with a simple maneuver. I heard that sickly POP once again as the bone moved back into place. Lily cried for a minute, then a minute later, forgot all about it and was using her arm normally again. Hurray!

When we finally got back to the hotel, Lily was wide awake. It was about the time she normally woke up, back in EST. "You've got to be kidding me, Lily!" We were just glad she was back to normal.

So now I am initiated to the special group of moms who can brag, "Yeah, I've taken my kid to the ER in the middle of the night in a strange city while on vacation." Well, maybe I'm not totally initiated because we haven't paid the medical bill yet....can I just vent that it's highway robbery that, in addition to the initial charge of being in the ER, in those 2 minutes the doctor can charge $300 for showing up and telling you what's wrong, and then another $200 for fixing the problem! Next time, I'll just have her pantomime how to fix it. I guess as we write the check I will force myself to remember how happy I was when they made her all better.