So as I alluded to in the last blog, going to the ER is not like going to your local ER in the United States. Just getting there is the biggest challenge here. We were grateful that Josh was able to make it until 4 am because this eliminated the problem we faced in the middle of the night—Danny would have to come with us. We had decided previously in the night that both Dustin and I would have to go to the ER. First, I had to be there because Josh wanted to be in my arms and we felt he would freak out if I was not present. Secondly, we needed Dustin in order to pay for it (our only credit card with no foreign transaction fees is in his name only—we ran out of time before we left for China to add my name) and to do any translation that may be needed. We were headed to the Western hospital (i.e.—caters solely to the expatriate community) and has only western trained doctors, but we were not sure if the nurses would speak English.
Therefore, we had no one to stay with Danny, so we were grateful he was able to sleep most of the night before we took off for the ER. Handling a new ER, in a Foreign country, with a sleep deprived three year old in tow was not what Dustin and I wanted. The Lord blessed us with not having to do it that way.
Danny was able to sleep almost to his normal time to wake up, because unlike in the United States where you jump into your car and go, this is not the case here. You first have to call your driver. Thank the Lord our driver answered first the text message and then called. He said he would be there as soon as possible, but it would be at least an hour before he could reach us. Our other choice was taking a taxi, but this would mean trying to obtain a taxi at this hour and taking the kids without car seats (I think we mentioned how they drive here before, so you know our concern). We therefore decided to wait for Tom to arrive. This also gave Danny the ability to sleep to just a little before 5am which is about when he normally wakes up in the morning.
We tried to distract Josh during this time, and to also try and assess a little whether he could grip anything or lift his arm. Before he awoke, I was really concerned that he may have torn something that would require surgery to fix. This would mean us traveling to Hong Kong to have the procedure done. Needless to say, I was anxious to get to the hospital and find out what was wrong. In playing with him, we could tell that he could close his fingers, but he did not much have much grip, and he completely refused to use his arm at all.
Amazingly, our driver Tom (he must have sped or the traffic was light, or a combination of both) arrived in just 30 minutes (he I believe has really bonded with the boys, especially Josh, so I imagine he tried his best to cut the time down to reach us).
Upon arrival at the ER, we entered and stood for a short time at a desk. Oh how I desperately wished they had a bell to ring on it and was tempted to call out, but as Josh was sitting comfortably in the stroller, I controlled myself. A security man that was outside when we arrived and followed us in, finally on his own went to search for someone. Within a couple of minutes, a man came out and thankfully he spoke really good English. Josh was already in the system as I had taken him to the clinic within our community for his last cold. The clinic is tied to the hospital, so their records are linked. They quickly got us into a screened off bed area and we waited for the nurse. The nurse also spoke excellent English and I calmly told her what happened. She looked at his arm for swelling and said the doctor would be right in. Dustin and I were greatly relieved to finally see the doctor, who was from Australia and to hear him almost immediately tell us that Josh was suffering from is what is called “classic pulled elbow”. Apparently, the article I read years ago was correct. Do not walk with your children by holding their hands. The part I missed or forgotten was that it was a pulled elbow and not a dislocated shoulder.
A pulled elbow is where a ligament, which in young children are really pliable and move about a lot, gets pulled out of its normal spot and gets stuck and is unable to move back on its own. The doctor said that in some cases it does go back on its own, but in the other cases they are just able to move it back into place. I cannot describe the relief I felt—not only in that Josh was going to be okay and that we would not need to travel to Hong Kong for further treatment, but that I did not hurt my child in some terrible way. (I had let my mind go to the point where I was picturing myself having to explain to Josh when he was older how I ended up paralyzing his arm—not the best picture to think about. Of course in hindsight, one would not think you could hurt someone that bad with just holding their arms while they walked across the room.) The doctor spent no more than 90 seconds just bending Josh’s arm up and down at the elbow with his finger pressed into the crease of his elbow. Josh of course was crying his heart out, but after that, he was fine. The doctor mentioned that it would take a little bit of time for him to forget the pain and therefore stop favoring his other arm.
We headed home shortly after that, and were amazed that Josh was fine and we would be able to continue on with our day as scheduled. We had planned to go and finish getting our resident permits and Dustin’s work permit, and we were running out of time to do it. This was one of the last days we could go except for this Friday and the coming Monday.
When I got home, I put Josh to bed as he was exhausted and I could already see that he was forgetting the pain because he used that arm to put his two fingers in that he sucks on while he sleeps. When he woke up he was like nothing happened at all. He shoved cheerios in by the fist full and finished off his hot dog in record time.
Dustin picked us up (he had gone to the office to fill out some of the papers needed for the afternoon) and we headed to Pudong to apply for the permits. As is quite common in Shanghai we hit traffic pretty quickly. Soon after hitting the wall of traffic was the fact that Josh decided the stop and go traffic makes him car sick, and he emptied his entire lunch all over himself and car seat. Thankfully (or not) as this has happened before, I now carry a change of clothes and some bags. So in the middle of stop and go traffic, I got to work cleaning him off and trying to clean up the seat. I placed Josh back in the seat on top of a bag (the seat was soaked) and waited to put his clothes on until we arrived. The rest of the drive was fine, just long.
We arrived about two hours before the office closed. We were ushered ahead in the line due to the kids. Unfortunately, we got to the lady at the desk only to find out that we were suppose to have reregistered with the police after we reentered the country from Hong Kong. We had no idea that after the initial registering with the police—this was done upon our arrival at our apartment—that we would have to do this each time we left the country as this registration was good until the end of next month. After some negotiation, they were willing to process the application to a certain point and then hold it until we returned with the appropriate paperwork. Therefore, we left a bit empty handed. Halfway home, Dustin and the women assisting him worked to coordinate how they would get everything finished in time. It was decided that tomorrow they would go in the morning to get the form from the police and then the women would be able to go on her own to file the rest of the papers.
So after a very long day, we ended with our favorite standby of Papa John’s pizza and headed to bed early.
We are so grateful that everything resolved itself well with Josh and it was comforting to find the ER to be as Western as it was here in China. We can only pray this will be our last trip there, but with two active boys, one never knows for sure.
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