The Saga of the Shoulder

My super power is a shoulder that dislocates not on command. How is this useful? Well, it is a damn good way to get the immediate and full attention of everyone around you, including complete strangers. With my out of control hair and loud, unfiltered mouth, I tend to not have issues with gathering stares. But the shoulder trick really reels people in; it's hard to ignore screaming and convulsing. The legacy of the popping out of place shoulder goes back a few years, and an event the other week has caused me to reflect on my predicament. Prepare to think I am a huge idiot.

I was told during physicals for high school soccer that I have loose joints, especially my shoulders. Being a young, invincible adolescent, I tucked this information away to the recesses of my brain and played out my high school career with zero incident. I survived the hack fest that is Idaho soccer with no more than a rolled ankle or two and some nasty bruises. This is a feat that not many accomplish. I felt pretty good about my body's resilience to injury as I headed to Montana State University Billings for my freshman season.

Despite playing soccer at a high level for the majority of my life, most of my injuries that have required hospital visits have not been directly caused by chasing a ball around. Typically, I get injured doing something slightly idiotic in a situation where soccer is the underlying reason I am there. My shoulder is no exception.

It was October in Billings, Montana, and that fact alone meant that it was going to snow when no one wanted it to. The sky decided to dump about six inches on the ground the day before our game and the men's game. In order to actually see our field, not to mention play on it, we had to shovel all of the snow into huge piles along the sidelines, creating a snow canyon soccer stadium. Some upperclassmen slackers built a snowman instead of helping. That was their first mistake. I will not name names, but one of them made a second mistake of daring me to tackle the unsuspecting snow sculpture. Amidst screams of protest from the snowman's creators, I sprinted full speed across the freshly cleared field, obviously preparing to end the short existence of the shapely pile of snow. I enveloped the snowman made of wet, heavy, unforgiving snow in a huge bear hug football tackle and cleanly severed it in half.

As I lay in the wreckage, I realized that I just got my ass kicked by a inanimate object. My left shoulder got in a fight with the semi-solid preciptation and it did not win. While I didn't completely dislocate my shoulder joint, I did stretch already loose ligaments to a point they did not enjoy. I may have totally obliterated a defenseless snow creature, but I paid for it by not being able to do throw-ins for about two weeks. Putting shirts on was also a major challenge. I'm still not sure if proving my dominance over nature's sky secretions was worth it.

Ever since then, my shoulder has popped out of its proper place about once a year, always with zero warning. It's a sneaky little bastard, waiting for the perfect moment to leave me yelping and wrigling on the ground in severe pain. It usually happens during soccer games, almost always right in front of the opposing team's bench. For what looks like no reason at all, I'm suddenly screaming like I'm being mauled by a bear and rolling on the ground as if I was having a seizure. This continues just long enough for everyone to stop and stare. Then KA-PING! The weaselly joint goes back into its home, and I immediately stand back up and yell at everyone in a Cookie-Monster-from-hell voice. Ask any of my old teammates from MSUB and they will tell you about this slightly terrifying sequence of events in which I am usually the only person who knows what the hell is going on.

All of this led up to the incident at the climbing gym last week. I had almost forgotten that sometimes my body and I aren't on the same page; I thought this whole shoulder thing was a conquered beast. Not so much. About halfway up the wall, I was struggling to reach the next hold, which was conveniently placed above my left shoulder. At about the same moment my friend/belayer says "Come on, push the mental limits!", I do exactly that. I took mind over matter to the next level and ejected my shoulder joint into no-man's land. This obviously caused me to start screaming "IT'S OUT, IT'S OUT!!!", let go of the wall (thank you harness for stopping potential disaster) and make everyone in the gym extremely uncomfortable. I strive to create awkward situations; this might have been my best creation yet.

There was something rather troubling about this last subluxation extravaganza: my joint did not put itself back together very quickly. Previously, it would go back in almost immediately upon popping out. This time, however, it stayed out for a good five minutes, causing me to hold my arm against my chest like a wounded chicken wing while staring at the ground, taking my mind someplace else. Though it was being kind of an asshole by staying out that long, it did choose a dramatic time to go back in. While I was giving information to an employee who had to fill out an accident report, it silently slid back into place, allowing me to stand back up like a normal human being and very casually say "Oh, it just went back in", as if commenting on the weather. The employee was impressed. It's a good day when I can impress a stranger with a weird body contortion act.

I guess I will need surgery at some point. But with my lack of appropriate health insurance and not taking anything serious until it is life-threatening, I doubt it will happen anytime soon. So I can look forward to many more awkward moments that myself and those around me will be totally unprepared for. Life is meant to be kept exciting, and self-dislocating joints are a great way to accomplish that.