I don't think we fully appreciate the efforts of our church nursury leaders. Some weeks can be pretty rough, trying to keep those 18 - 40 month old kids reverant for 2 hours! So here's what happened...
There I am sitting in a wonderful priesthood lesson about revelation when the stake president stops in the doorway, scans the room, points directly and me and summons me to the door! I have to admit that a small pit entered my stomache as I went to see what the stake president could possibly want from me (all the high council and bishopric positions are currently filled and our ward has contributed more than its fair share...). My fears were quickly put to rest when I was informed that one of my boys was acting up in class. I tried to guess which one as I had already had the opportunity to visit 2 of them during their primary time. But I guessed wrong; David was behaving wonderfully after our little chat. I was surprised that it was Donovan who had been behaving well up to that point.
But the acting up wasn't in a diruptive way. When I walked into the room he looked so pathetic, holding his arm (while sitting in the window sill next to his teacher) crying, obviously in pain. My first instinct was to check for broken bones (which is challenging when the little guy won't let you touch his arm). I thought he'd just been a little rough with the other kids while playing "pop the bubbles" in class. I should have interrogated the teacher much more thoroughly but I was preoccupied with my sobbing son and decided to take him back to my class and console him since there was only about 5 minutes left in class anyway. Since he was still not happy and still in pain he got to ride in the stroller all the way home.
Once home we began to investigate because this little injury wasn't getting better and Donovan certainly wasn't acting like himself. He still wouldn't let us touch his arm and Michelle's motherly instincts were getting out of control (ok, not out of control but she was definitely expressing some concern for her child). She started calling the entire ward directory to investigate the situation because of my lack of dective skills in the matter. With no luck on the phones we decided to take him to see the doctor who happens to have have (emergency) office hours on Sunday.
We checked in while Michelle held down the fort and continued calling anyone in the primary who might have a clue (or know someone who might have a clue) as to what had happened in class. Meanwhile we go wait to see the doctor and all of the nurses can't get over how cute Donovan is in his white shirt and tie (with grey vest) and his future missionary badge. We go back to an open room, answer some quick questions and wait 37 seconds for the doctor to come in (it's Sunday and we're the only patient in sight). The doctor asks me all the questions that Michelle had already asked with the same unintelligable results. So he does the best he can to determine what the problem is...
He makes an educated guess, starts to examine the arm as he explains that there is a simple & easy possibility or a much more complicated one. But before he can finish his explanation he "pops" the arm back and then explains what just happened (Donovan wasn't too happy with the examination and really wasn't happy when his arm popped). The problem is referred to as "nurse maids elbow" and can happen very easily when an arm is pulled suddenly (and that arm is very relaxed). It isn't a full dislocation, just a subluxation, and a simple pull and slight twist will fix the problem.
We were sent back to the waiting room to allow time for Donovan to "forget" he was in pain. It took a couple minutes but when he tried to read a large book with one hand it didn't work too well and in a moment of forgetfulness he started to use his hurt arm. Success!!! His arm was better. Once he realized that his arm didn't hurt he said, "Daddy, my arm doesn't hurt anymore!" All the nurses smiled at him as he made his way through the waiting room and out the door to the car.
This (fortunately) little injury caused us a few moments of concern. At one point we thought the arm may have been fractured somehow because of the apparent pain level Donovan was exhibiting. But now he is better. Michelle has a little chat with the Primary President after the boys went to bed and let her know what had happened so that she could inform the primary workers to be careful and watch out so that no more arms would be hurt during church.
