I slipped. It was on ice, which makes it about month or so ago. I caught myself with my right arm positioned straight putting all the force on my shoulder. I can't articulate what I felt, it was just a general feeling of sharp pain which kept me from concentrating on such details. I might have felt my shoulder pop out, I might have felt it crack, I couldn't recall as I lay on the ground rubbing my throbbing shoulder. I suffered through the next few days of severe discomfort, but felt all it needed was some time to heal.
I should have know to go get it checked out right away from my previous experience with my breaking my right knee cap. I'd been down this path before, but of course, my testosterone told me I would be fine and to not worry about it. I'll walk it off. So now it's a month later (better than the six months it took for my knee), and I'm spending a good chunk of my day in the waiting room at the Pan Am clinic.
I've been here before so I know the wait that is ahead of me. I brought a copy of CS Lewis's 'Voyage to Venus' but find it hard to concentrate due to the TV playing over my head and the growing impulse to peek over the top of the book and people watch. That guy right across from me looks like a mess with road rash on the side of his face and his arm cradled into his body. The twenty something possibly farmer, possibly construction worker in the corner has a cast peaking out from the sleeve of his mud encrusted jacket while the girl beside him reading some generic women's magazine has a tensor bandage wrapped around her knee. I start to analyze how I must look amidst such apparent injury. No abrasions, no bandages, I'm not even limping. I must look like some hypochondriac come to waste the doctors time. I feel inadequately injured amidst such bodily trauma. I should have faked a limp.
After what seems like the better part of the day watching the more deserving lead away to the doctor one by one, my name is called. "Just in here," she says, "and have your shirt off." There is no more self criticizing time than sitting in the doctors room looking at the lump of pasty white winter weight that has secured itself to my midriff. I'm here to get my shoulder checked out, but I fear the doctor might in the objective interest of my health say something or at least cast chastising glance. Anyone else, in any other situation has the obligation of social etiquette to not speak of it, but a doctor, no matter how low he makes your self-esteem must be thanked for his sage advice. There is no greater motivation to hit the gym than sitting in an examination room trying to find the least unflattering sitting position.
Thankfully my fears are not realized as the doctor who eventually arrives is fully concerned with the state of my shoulder, not my waistline. I feel silly for worrying, but still, you better count on the fact that the urgency of obtaining a gym membership is at the top of my to do list. The prognosis of my shoulder becomes my main attention, leaving my future hours on the elliptical to be pondered over another time. Dr. Teo believes I may have chipped cartilage off of my shoulder which can only be fixed with scope surgery. I will be booked for an MRI and we will proceed from it's findings.
After covering my insecurities with my shirt again I make a quick exit into the slightly raining daylight. The remainder of the day contains viewing my first film photos in over a year, coffee coupled with conversation from friendly coffee shop employees wearing old navy officer caps, and the first listening of a new experimental classical album with a clever title while riding the bus home amidst the proletariat. The little joys that brighten the day despite insecurities.
