The
smell of a doctor’s office filled my lungs as I entered the golden doors at the
clinic. I do not want to be here at all. After five months of pain and two
failed attempts at physical therapy, it is my “Judgment Day” on my shoulder.
This visit decides if I play sports my sophomore year or not. As I sit in the
room, waiting to see the doctor, I think of all the negative outcomes that are
liable to happen. I also think about how many times I have sat in this office,
and the long road I came from.
It was my freshman year, and
baseball tryouts were in about three weeks. My confidence is at an all time low
due to our terrible football season. I was positive I would not make the team,
so I saw no reason to try out. I mean, why would you set yourself up for
disappointment? However, one of my friends signed me up so I thought I would
give it a shot. After a not so bad tryout, I made the team.
After a miserable freshman season of
baseball, summer baseball came. I wanted to quit baseball after the first game
of the season, but my dad would not let me! Now, I have to go through a whole
summer of this. I don’t even play! I don’t even know if I like baseball
anymore. I just want to play football. Right then I knew the only thing that
was going to get me through summer baseball was the thought of football in the
fall.
It is our fourth game of our summer
season, and, as usual, I am not playing. I was pinch running for our catcher,
however. It was not much at all. But it was one of the few things I excelled
in. I took pride in running those bases. I was like a bird in open air. It just
felt natural to me. It did not take long for our catcher to get on base. Now it
was my chance to shine! I stepped on first, got my signal, and was ready to go.
I take my two-step lead and get ready to steal, but the pitcher caught me off
guard. He throws the ball over to first and I dive back quickly with my right
arm. I hear that I am safe, but something is wrong. I heard a pop when I dove
back nut I did not know what it was. I roll over to my side to get up when all
of a sudden I am overwhelmed with pain in my right shoulder. It feels like
somebody just hit my shoulder with a sledgehammer. After I look at my shoulder,
which had sunk into my chest, I blacked out.
I wake up with a needle in my wrist,
my arm in a sling, and three strangers in white coats in a room.
“What
am I doing here?” I asked them.
“You
are at the hospital, you have a grade two separated shoulder, and we had to put
you to sleep to get it back in.” One of the doctors replied.
They checked me for side effects of
the painkillers I was given and then they left the room. Shortly after the
left, my mom came in saying we could leave whenever I was ready. I said I was
ready. On the way out I stopped one of the doctors and asked how long would I
be out for this type of injury. He told me about three weeks, but I needed to
see a specialist just in case.
A week had gone by, I was still
wearing a sling and we had scheduled a doctor’s appointment. I thought the
doctor’s appointment was a complete waste of time. If one doctor said I only
needed three weeks, why should I listen to another one? Nevertheless, just to
be safe my parents made me go to the doctor. I sit down in the doctors office
and he starts asking me what hurts, what doesn’t hurt, and when does it hurt.
After what seemed like an eternity, he concluded that this was more than just a
dislocated shoulder. He thinks I tore my rotator cuff and my labrum. Both
injuries are very likely to end my high school career of any sports.
Three months after my injury and one
moth of therapy later, I was in his doctor’s office again. This is the day he
supposed to clear my to start back in sports. This is the only time I will ever
be happy in a doctor’s office I thought to myself as I walked to his office. We
went through the same routine. He asked me what hurts, what doesn’t hurt, and
when it hurts. He says I can start lifting weights but I will have to sit out
my sophomore year of football. I’m sad but grateful that its only one year.
I’m sitting in the waiting room for
what seems like the one hundredth time with my dad. The last time we were here,
we received good news. This time will be different. I had dislocated my
shoulder again yesterday. However, it had popped back in. but it still hurt
extremely bad. I knew I had done something so my dad scheduled another
appointment. So here I am. He walks in, disappointed to see me. He goes through
the same routine. He asked me what hurts, what doesn’t hurt, and when it hurts.
He thinks another month of physical therapy will work. But if it does not,
surgery is the next option.
The journey I had to go through to
get here was a wild one. I had been to the doctor six times in the past five
months. This visit would not be my last, and I know it. They call my name to
enter the doctors office so he can make the final judgment on my shoulder. As I
am walking in, I can already picture him saying: “What hurts? What doesn’t hurt?
When does it hurt?”