John Whitten's Elbow Issues

Last Friday Shaun was playing with John Whitten and hurt his arm when he was swinging him around. It was a classic nursemaid's elbow, but it was so hard to see him hurting so badly. He couldn't even lift his arm let alone use it at all. Poor Shaun felt so bad that he had "hurt" his baby boy, but the doctor made him feel better when she told him it was really common. And they did tell us that sense it had now happened that it might happen again so to be really careful with him. Umm, not only did it happen again it happened four more times over the next three days. I was scared that if I even looked at him wrong his elbow would dislocate itself. After talking to our pediatrician Monday morning he suggested we go ahead and see a pediatric orthopedic that morning. We saw Dr. Killian Monday morning and poor John Whitten's elbow was still out of place from when it had come out earlier that morning. After Dr. Killian put it back her talked to me about casting it for a few weeks just to let everything in his elbow "settle down and heal", but I really didn't want to cast it unless we HAD to. Instead we decided to use a little sling that wrapped around his chest and help keep his arm still. He wore it for a few hours a day for a few days and then he was over it and refuses to put it on. At least his arm hasn't come out of place in the last few days, so I guess it is fine now. The crazy thing about all of this is that Shaun actually watched a YouTube video  (two of them to be exact) on how to put John Whitten's elbow back in place...and then he did it!! The orthopedic actually said that this was fine, but I still cannot believe that I actually let him do it. Hey, it saved us a few co-pays....how horrible does that sound? The good news is that John Whitten's elbow has stayed in it's socket for almost a whole week now!  Lets hope it stays that way.