Who knew family portraits could be so dangerous?!

I bet you've never had a family portrait session end in an ER visit. Yeah, it was a first for us too.

Since this is our last fall here in Ohio, we couldn't pass up the chance to take some family portraits out in the beautiful fall colors. So yesterday we headed out to Patterson Farm for a photo shoot. In order to get Hannah to laugh and smile, Bryan and I were swinging her high in the air by her wrists. Everyone does it, right: "One, two, three...Wheee!" She was loving it and giggling her guts out until Bryan felt a POP in her left arm. She immediately stopped laughing and started crying... and wouldn't stop. Now, Hannah is a pretty tough girl. She has two older brothers to rough-house with and climbs on everything! She falls and gets hurt all the time, sometimes cries for a few seconds, and then gets right back to it.

So this time, we could tell she was pretty hurt. She held her arm close to her body and laid completely still in Bryan's arms, fussing if her arm was ever moved slightly. After a few minutes of this, we were certain something was wrong. Bryan suspected it was Nursemaid's Elbow (which I vaguely remember hearing about in Anatomy, but couldn't remember exactly what it meant), so we headed to the ER to get it checked out.

Poor Hannah! During the entire 40 minutes we waited at the ER, Hannah laid completely still in Bryan's arms whimpering softly. She would only take a couple bites of the delicious Patterson's pumpkin and apple cider doughnuts we offered her (Best doughnuts EVER, by the way! Andrew wittily pointed out how lucky it was that we bought the doughnuts before we started the pictures!). Once the doctor saw her, he diagnosed Nursemaid's Elbow in a matter of seconds, and said she would be fine once he popped the bone back into place. That didn't sound like anything I wanted to be around for, so I took the boys down the hall to the bathroom. From where I was, I could clearly hear her yelp in pain briefly, then nothing else.

I was anxious to get back to her, and when we did, she was a completely different little girl! She was climbing on the chairs and giggling and I had to chase her (happily) back and forth down the hall as Bryan finished up the paperwork. She was using her arm and waving at strangers while she gobbled a whole doughnut. It was wonderful and amazing to see such a complete and instant transformation after seeing her suffer so much! In pulled elbow, the annular ligament around the radial head (left) is dislodged when the arm is pulled (middle), partially dislocating into the radiocapitellar joint when the arm is released (right).

So we've learned that in order to prevent this very painful experience, you should not grab or swing any child under the age of 6 by the arm. Once Nursemaid's Elbow has happened, the child is much more susceptible to having it happen again. Good to know.

...and hopefully we can find another day soon to get our family pictures taken.