My Shoulder

So many of you may have heard that I hurt my left shoulder… and here is the story.

I landed on my shoulder twice during our third game of the day against a Div I team at Beantown tournament in New Hampshire. The first time it hurt, but I was able to stand up and keep playing. Maybe it would’ve been better if I steps out of the game when that happened… but since we were down by one player already (someone got injured and stepped out the game without having a sub), I don’t feel like doing that… so the second time I landed on my shoulder clearly, like.. just shoulder without anything else hit the ground and then I flipped over… I tried to get up, but my shoulder would not follow my body… and after two try I gave up. I felt something is out of place but since I never dislocated any joints, I had no idea just what happened. Talia walked me to the medical booth at the tournament and found a girl to look at my shoulder. She examined it and told me that it looked like I just gammed my shoulder, and told me that if I want to play the next day, go see them first. “Uh… she is not gonna play tomorrow.” Talia replied with a ridiculous look thinking that girl was insane. So I put on some ice and got back to my car. Talia helped me driving it back to Boston (it was about 1.5 hours driving) and dropped off everyone. That was about 7 or 8pm, I think. Then she took me to MIT Medical. The doctor looked at my shoulder and tells me that it is definitely dislocated. He tried to put it back in place for about 10 minutes, making me sit up, lay on my back, lay on my stomach, and dangling my arm out of the bed… anyways, it was quite painful and not really having much success. He thought he popped it back in but something still looks wrong. So he referred me to MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) emergency room (ER). So Talia drove me to MGH while I was in a funny looking gown. So we got to MGH and took some x-rays (click on it to see the x-ray copy) after waiting forever. Then a doctor woke me up and finally announced my real problem. It was not only dislocated (which was fixed at MIT Medical) but it was also a 3rd degree AC separation. It means that the ligament connecting my shoulder blade and my collar bone was stretched (not torn, thank god) so that the two bones were separated by almost 2 cm. He also told me that there isn’t much they could do about it… I do not need a surgery, because the bones will just grow back together over time. They prescript me some stuff and discharged me from the ER. When we finally got back to WILG it was almost 2am… We both really exhausted… Talia then made some dinner for me (we haven’t eaten the whole day! And talia did not eat either because she refused to delay me getting medical attention and did not want to leave me alone in the hospital… I cannot express how much I appreciate her company) … Then we both headed back to bed.

I found it was extremely painful to move my arm around… and the sling wasn’t strong enough to hold my arm in place so I had to use my other arm to hold it the whole time, which made my whole body sore… So showering the next morning wasn’t so fun… WILG (where I live) girls helped me to untie my gown and sling, helped me bringing my showering stuff to the first floor bathroom, which luckily was made for handicapped person. Perfect! I refused their offer to help me actual shower and started my adventure. There was a chair-ish thing to sit in the bathroom and there was a bar right next to the site at arm level. I guess it was for eople to hold, but I found it was a perfect place to rest my left arm on while I tried to shower with one arm. So I picked up my left arm, as if it was just some attachment of my body that I did not have any control over. Then I carefully placed it on the bar so that it wouldn’t slip. And it took me a lot time to shower because I had to try to keep my body relatively stationary respect to my left arm, otherwise it hurts like no other. So finally I got out of the shower and wrapped myself into a roll… Talia then tried to help me get dressed… she found a lose bottom down jersey for me to wear that day, because there was no way I could stretch my arm out to put on a T-shirt, not even a large one… Then I told her to wait outside of the door (because if am shy) and I will call her if I need her help. I did need some help from her to get completely dressed… now I just realized how important my left arm is even though I am right handed. Everything was just so inconvenient to do with one arm, especially when there was pain involved... Glad it was a Sunday I did not need to look good to go to class… However, it wasn’t the case on Monday… it was the first day of class of my Hebrew class in Harvard. Because all my other bottom down shirts were too tight for a injured shoulder… I had to put on t-shirts… It took me some effort to put a t-shirt on… but with the help of my teeth, it was nicely done. =) Other than some inconvenience and a little pain, it was alright.

After an appointment with orthopedics couple days later, I found out that I will have to wear a sling for 2 or 3 weeks… To heal completely, it will take 3-5 months, and I need help from physical therapist to regain the full range of motion of my shoulder. I started to do some simple exercise since Wed. Thinks like swing my arm forward and backward, swing my arm side to side, swing my arm in circles… and the hardest one to do was shrugs! It usually takes me more than half an hour to do those exercises where my right arm would only take minutes to do the same thing… However, I found it was pleasing to see how much it improved after each exercise session. Today (Friday), I did not need to lay my arm on the bar in the showering room any more. My left arm cannot do much complicated stuff, but as long as it is kept close to my body, I feel pretty comfortable. Also, it can move a little bit on its own now. Despite the arm does not have much strength, my left hand works just fine… I tied my shoelaces by myself since yesterday, so that I don’t have to wear flip-flops to class all the time… (Yeah I had to wear those to class the first time of my life…) I also managed to put on the sling by myself, which requires stick a part in the back... Oh and I am typing with both hands comfortably for the first time! (With the help of external keyboard that is =) The only simple thing I cannot do so far is the tie my hair… so I wear my cap at home to keep my hair back or ask friends to tie it for me if I have to go to class. Other than that, I can do pretty much everything in my daily life.

Jess said that she was amazed by my ability to do stuff on my own. Actually I am more amazed about how fast our body heals. How fast less and less pain I feel day by day. Also, I would like to say that I am VERY GRATEFUL for all the help and support I have been receiving from the house. Everyone is so nice! Especially, Talia who worries about me more than myself do (Tals, did you thank your parents for me for sending me yummy Challah?); Jess who is helping me build my magic box for my intro to visual art class; many other ones I bug when I need help. I feel really lucky that I live in WILG, I feel like I am not facing the hard time by myself. Maybe this is also why I wasn’t so worried at all the whole time. I knew I can get it through, because of my awesome friends. Thanks to all! I really appreciate your help!!! It also applies to the ones are far from me! I know if I were near you, you would have done the same thing for me! And just your concern about me warms my heart and gives me courage! I am indeed a lucky one to have you all!

So yeah, if you were worry about my condition, please stop worrying. I am totally fine. I am sure I can go through this without much trouble. Seriously, I would hate to know any of you worries about me.

There is a rugby game on Sunday. I plan to go watch, though it probably makes me feel like playing a lot… sigh… too bad I am out for this season…

What else is new? Oh I am taking Hebrew in Harvard. This changes my life completely. I used to sleep from 4am-11am. However, because the class is at 9am-10am… I have to get up early to take bus over there… also because of my shoulder, I had to get up extra early to do icing and stuff… So my life has become more normal… that is sleep around 12 or 1am and gets up at 7 or 8am… it isn’t that bad… it is nice to see the sun for a little longer ;) also because I like the class, I don’t mind at all. Oh so this weekend is Yum Kippor huh. !חתמה טובה =) Hehe, and this not from copy and pasting, but I made it by myself! We are learning reading the alef-bet and vowels now =) Hehe

I am going to LA to see my tiger (Tony) the weekend of Oct 5th. Hopefully my shoulder will be much better by then, or he will be busy =P I am looking forward to it! [Happy 2-month anni to us! (It was today)=D]

Ok… this is enough I think… I need a break for my wrist and hopefully when I update my blog next time I will be out of my sling =)