Yesterday Brian escorted his parents and the girls down to Sentosa for the afternoon. Early in the trip, Emily fell out of a chair and appeared to land face first but kept complaining about shoulder pain. Brian brought her home to me and while she seemed better a little while later, we knew we were headed to the hospital when Emily cried in pain when trying to reach for her cup at dinner.
After a couple hours in the 24-hour clinic (it was Sunday night of Chinese New Year weekend), we had x-rays that proved exactly why our little girl was in so much pain. Emily has a fracture in her left collar bone, although it doesn't appear the break went all the way through. After confirming the diagnosis with the doctor, we waited for the specialist to arrive later in the evening. He gave us a small sling for Emily's left arm but he encouraged us to let her move as it feels comfortable to her and reassured us that it should heal quickly with little intervention on anyone's part. We will return in a couple weeks for x-rays to make sure it's healing properly.
In the meantime, it's really no fun to watch an active 3-year old learn the hard way that there are certain movements that suddenly cause considerable pain. Basically Emily is unable to reach her left arm forward so simple activities like washing her hands or reaching for toys result in cries of pain. Thankfully she was able to sleep fairly well last night, probably from sheer exhaustion from the ER visit.
I guess I can at least be glad the injury happened here in Singapore instead of while we were on vacation. And we once again saw the perks of Cigna International health insurance last night when we paid $0 for the entire hospital visit. But above all, I was reminded of the awful, helpless feeling when our child is in pain. I have no doubt the memory of her injury will fade much faster for Emily than it will for her parents.
Brave Little Girl
Marie says she had that same sling when she hurt her arm! Hope it works as welk for Emily as it did for Marie.
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