GranolaBox

Last month was the last straw for my right shoulder. It’s suffered more than 20 years of abuse, and decided that it was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take any more. My upper arm felt the time was right to secede from my shoulder and maybe, eventually my entire body. I’d always thought that because of my higher bottom as an addict that I didn’t feel a lot of physical consequences of my drinking and then, while reviewing my shoulder’s history with the orthopedic surgeon I realize that it took a heavy indirect toll on my shoulder.

The first time I hurt it was in college. I can tell you what day it was. It was the day before the Superbowl. My hallmates in Draime Extension made a bet with another hall of freshman hellions from 7th floor Knowles hall. Who ever won the football game would get home field advantage for the superbowl party, and the team that lost had to bring a keg of beer to the party. There was a lot at stake here.

Game day was a stormy, snowy mess…. something I hadn’t really taken into consideration. I wasn’t really planning on playing anyway because I sucked so much at football. A couple guys had gone home for the weekend though, and they needed me. I sucked but I liked playing, it this was like being called in the middle of picking teams in gym class instead of being picked last like I always was. I was a starter.

I didn’t know all this beforehand though, and I spent the better part of the morning finishing beer from the keg the night before. By game time, I was feeling pumped but woefully uncoordinated.

It didn’t stop me from playing an admirable first quarter. It turns out I was a pretty good defensive end, and broke up a couple long passes. I also leveled a receiver right after a pass completion that drove him four feet across the snow.

Open field tackles were my weakness though because anyone with any level of skill could put a good fake on me. I was ready to tackle the runner with my whole being, but he moved quickly to the left, and I ended up attempting a “clothesline” tackle with my right arm. The runner didn’t even slow down… he just dragged me along by my arm and shoulder.

My shoulder hurt a little bit from then on but not really really bad. It was the kind of injury that only flared up once in a while, the kind that might make you switch to sleeping on the other side for a little while.

So it was until the summer of 1997. My brother Large was visiting and we left my old house planning to get stinking drunk. We succeeded admirably. The bars were within walking distance of my house, so on our stumble home, after peeing on a downed light pole (because it was there and we thought it might be cool to pee on it okay?) and feeling the cloak of invincibility that can only accompany such an accomplishment I decided to try a somersault.

My brother watched in amusement and horror. This is the way he describes it. He remembers it vividly despite his extreme drunkenness.

I’m tall and skinny, and he describes my cartwheel as a perfect cartwheel. My arms and legs were flying around wildly but in perfect cartwheel formation. It was, by all existing drunken standards, a perfectly executed cartwheel.

The problem came with my landing. I landed squarely on my feet, but all hell broke loose from there. The way Large describes it, I just kept rolling, except my arms were late in catching me. The first thing to hit was my shoulder and then, somewhere along the line my face hit the pavement with what Large still calls to this day a “sickening smack.”

When I stood up, my shoulder didn’t feel right at all. Despite the anesthetic, it hurt and I couldn’t really move it around all that well. My arm seemed for a few moments to be dangling and inoperative from the rest of my body. My right shoulder hung about a foot lower than my left shoulder. I looked at Large helplessly.

Being the great elder brother that he is, he knew exactly what to do. He said so.

“My friend used to do this all the time,” he said calmly as he walked around behind me.

“I know exactly what to do,” he said reassuringly.

“I had to do this for him all the time,” he said as he put me in a half nelson.

“This will only hurt really bad for a few minutes,” he said as he lifted me up by the shoulder blades. He cranked my arm until it groaned out a sickening pop that could only come from hot, violent bone on bone action. It was chiropractic porn.

“Perfect,” he said as soon as he loosened the hold. And it was! It hurt a lot, but at least I could move it at will. I was now free to concentrate on removing gravel from my face.

After a little physical therapy it started to feel better, and my doctor, the one who eventually told me I was becoming possessed by Satan, didn’t see fit to pursue it any further.

Fast forward another ten years to the present day. Far from the drunken stupor of yesteryear, I was walking DOUG’s dog Sally in the woods with the Queen of my Universe when she got tangled in some burrs. Cursing my usual Sally curses, I tried to untangle her leash from the bushes. One pulled up by the roots and in frustration I threw it across the field.

I think my arm went further than the actual bush did. My arm jumped its socket again, spurred on by a week of intense wheelbarrow work. Despite having been completely snockered at my first dislocation I knew exactly what was happening.

The sickening pop of relocation came mercifully quickly, only because I was rolling around on the ground in pain and apparently rolled the right way and popped it back in place. The pain was so bad I was seeing stars and felt like I was going to pass out. I was too drunk to feel this the first time.

And now I have to have surgery for the first time in my life. The doctor showed me the picture from my MRI. The tendon he showed me was supposed to be smooth. There was a great big glob of something sinister interrupting the smooth tendons.

“And take a look at this” the doctor said, pointing to a spot on my shoulder bone.

“See this thing here? It looks like a little tiny shark came and took a bite out of your shoulder.”

Wonderful.

Filed under: General Observations, Yesterdaze on February 20th, 2008