Unfamiliar Paths: Unplanned Experiences: The Sling

We continue to learn about how to live here in Spain, and continue on our pretty constant parade of 'firsts.' We made our first visit to the emergency room here in La Coruña Thursday evening. We were visiting another home, and Ryan fell in the simplest of ways. He was already sitting on the wood floor, and he spun around to do something, lost his balance, and fell over. It took us 5-10 minutes to discover that his arm was REALLY hurting, and he would not allow us to touch it.

Once again, God really provided for our needs. We happened to be with a number of bi-lingual missionaries at the time, and one of them, Leah, was so great to give up her evening and help us take care of Ryan. We had been planning on applying for the public health care system on this coming week, so obviously had not registered yet. The local clinic took a look at Ryan anyway, and suggested an x-ray was necessary. This meant a trip to the local children's hospital emergency room, where they also helped us. .

Overall, Ryan was an excellent 2 year old patient. Especially one who missed dinner and bedtime to check out the emergency room. He obviously did not enjoy having his sore arm poked and prodded. He spent most of the time in the hospital in my arms, whimpering or crying. He gave several dirty looks to the Doctors who poked and prodded him. Despite his misgivings, the Doctors were very nice to him, and tried very hard to figure out if anything was wrong. The x-ray showed no broken bones, which is good. But evidently with children this small it is very difficult to tell if there is any ligament damage. He refused to use the injured arm for the entire visit. They said it's most likely a sprain, and put him in a sling. They suggested he take ibuprofen, and if he wasn't using his arm in 5 days to visit the pediatrician.

Here is a picture of him taken on Friday.

For our first experience into socialized medicine, it wasn't that bad. We've heard that waiting for a long time is the norm. (The socialized system is known for it's slowness. Our friend Leah, who was helping us, hurt her knee almost a month ago, and will not get it x-rayed until December!!) But in our case, it didn't seem we waited any more at the public hospital here than I ever have at a US hospital. We now get to urgently complete our registration for the health care system on Monday in order for this visit to be covered.

At any rate, he perked up almost immediately after we walked out of the hospital doors. Thankfully, Friday was a holiday, so we've had a three day weekend. It's been two days, and he is still in his sling, and still not using the arm. He's terrified to take it off, even though we have made him take it off once each day since. Outside of the very noticeable sling, you'd have trouble recognizing he's operating with one arm. He climbs around, makes trouble with his brother, plays and eats normally. I've included three more photos below to prove he did just fine as we did some sightseeing in Coruña today, and at the park. You can feel a little bad for him, but not too bad. After all, he gets even more attention now than he was before when we go out.