Old and Falling Apart

I am relatively young, as people like to point out to me. Although, when I turned 30 people joked that it was “all down hill from here.” Part of me thought that maybe they could be right.

Perhaps, it is just a coincidence but getting older has meant that I have slowly started to slide down hill. First, I had to have an emergency appendectomy. A year later, I had to have an umbilical hernia repair. And today, I have a further story about falling apart.

I was swimming with some friends and was just running in the water as we chased each other. I don’t know how but I managed to throw my shoulder out of its socket doing this.

I got out of the water and laid down on the deck in pain. A lifeguard came up to me and asked me if I was okay. I said, “No,” and they took me to the first aid room.

My arm looked horrible. It was obviously hanging in an unnatural way and I think it worried some of the lifeguards. I told them about my history and how that this was actually an old skateboarding injury. I fell off of a mini-ramp one day as a teenager and landed directly on my shoulder. Since then, it has slipped out of a joint a dozen or so times. Every time it manages to pop back into place when I roll on the ground. Today it didn’t.

It really hurt and I started to go into shock. I felt like I was going to pass out. I laid down on the bed in the room but it hurt too much to stay in that position. The lifeguards put ice on my arm in the hopes that it would reduce the swelling and hopefully it would pop back into place.

I couldn’t just sit there any longer. I had to get up and walk around. So I did. Fortunately, it popped back into place all on its own. I tell you that was a long twenty minutes.

I feel old. I seem to be falling apart. I know that I am not, and that I really don’t have any health problems. It just feels good to vent about this stuff. I feel much better now. My arm feels fine, although it will probably be a bit tender for a few days. I’m just glad it popped back into place and that I didn’t need any more surgery.


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