Rate the Pain, 1-10

"Sir, if you could rate the pain on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, and one being no pain at all, how would you describe it?"

No matter how innocently this question is asked, I always perceive it in a condescending tone. A tone as if to say "Go ahead and say ten, ya little druggie, so the doctor can prescribe you the good stuff... worthless animal" So I answered to the nurse that when put in motion, the pain in my shoulder rated an 8 on this invisible scale. Immediately after answering, I have to scan the nurse's face for any hint of disbelief. I'm an injured man, cornered in my doctors office, and any provocation from her may lead to an untimely demise caused from blunt force trauma. The trauma would undoubtedly be from me ripping the injured appendage from its socket and administering repeated blows to her head and neck.

But I digress, back to the subject in hand:

I am in an Urgent Care doctor's office. The previous day while at a pole vault practice, my right shoulder started getting a little sore. This is nothing new, being that the entire sport is centered around leaving the ground with a large fiberglass pole flexing to propel your body over tremendous heights (assuming you are me) all the while having your arms stretched fully above your head and nearly ripped from their socket. I hear this is the most stressful sport to the shoulder joint. I try to ignore that fact, as a small man of what appears to be Indian descent enters the room and identifies himself as the doctor. The apparent lack of vowels in his name confirms to me that he is of the foreign persuasion. After approximately 20 seconds of twisting and pulling at my right arm, the doctor had his diagnosis. He said it was strained muscles in my rotator cuff. I was hoping he was right, and it wasn't anything more serious. He prescribed me a few things and told me to check back in after 5 days if my shoulder was not improving.

When I left the office and headed to the pharmacy, I took a closer look at my prescriptions. One was a muscle relaxer and one was a pain killer. Both warned gravely against driving while on the medication. Awesome.

I'm going to fast forward a little here, as the next few weeks were somewhat of a haze anyway. I will say that Tramadol (pain killer, in the same class as morphine) has some VERY interesting effects and side effects. In fact, I could probably write a book on just that alone. But, back to the point, 13 days later my shoulder was improving but not much. In this short time span I wouldn't allow myself to pole vault, even if it killed my very soul. Pole vaulting is the one sport I've ever had a knack for, I feel like I get it. The entire event is just one big physics equation that I control all the variables for. When something doesn't go as planned, there is always a mathematical and scientific explanation for it, and if you know me you know how much I like that certainty. What has become uncertain however, is the functionality of my shoulder. I returned to the doctor for a follow-up. He scheduled an appointment for me to get checked out and x-rayed at Tri-State Orthopedic for the next morning. I am now happy because it feels like something is going to get done about this and I can go back to vaulting.

The next morning I get to the Orthopedic Doctor's office and change into a complimentary tank top to await the doctor. The man who walked in to examine me can only be described in the terms of GIGANTIC. I am positive he was well over 6'6" and was built like a brick shithouse. The thing that immediately jumped out at me was his enormous polka-dotted bowtie. At this point, I can only describe this man as a super-sized Groucho Marx (minus the mustache and cigar.) As he introduces himself and starts examining the afflicted joint, it starts to be more and more apparent to me that this man is smart. And I don't mean degrees-on-the-wall smart, I mean whip-your-ass-at-trivial-pursuit smart. Correcting college professors smart. And its a rare thing when I feel that someone is honestly more intelligent than me, so I pay attention with all my mind. Dr. Gargantuan is continuing to twist on my arm and finally stops to sit and pulls out a voice recorder. As he clicks record, the voice coming out of him is so fast, an auctioneer would tell this guy to slow down. He is spitting out medical terms that are beyond me at a mile a minute, and its just awesome.

When he stops his light-speed analysis into his voice recorder, he turns to me and dons his "I'm talking to a mere mortal" voice to let me know that he has a pretty good idea of what is wrong but wants me to get some x-rays to be sure. I am whisked away to the x-ray lab within their facility. My two x-ray nurses are locked into their mind numbing tasks, barely focused on who I am, but more focused on getting me out of their lab. Their collectively dismissive attitudes make me determined to make my presence known. My ego is subconsciously screaming "I am Samuel, and you WILL give me your undivided attention."

The first nurse sits me down on a chair in front of this monstrous machine. She is young, looks like she graduated college recently and is now in her chosen career which she didn't realize was going to suck so bad. I immediately feel pity for the poor guy she may have at home, because she is striking me as the type who can suck the life right out of your best male friend in a matter of months. As she gets me positioned in the chair for the best possible X-ray, she flops one of the protective lead sheets onto my lap and leaves the room. As the machine fires up, I am momentarily puzzled by this action, then realize that the lead sheet is protecting my baby-making parts from radiation. As the machine continues to make ominous noises around me, I wonder if I can remove the lead sheet and use this turn of events to my advantage as a cheap form of birth control. Almost as immediately as the idea came to me it passed; visions of mutant tadpole sized sperm and green radioactive alien babies thwart my ideas of radiation as an effective form of birth control. As the machine kicks off, my mind is still pondering thoughts of testicular cancer. The nurse comes back in and rotates the machine while ordering me to stand and position myself near the wall for the next batch of radiation. I ask her innocently "Should I bring my junk guard along with me?" and am greeted with guffaws of laughter from her and her unseen helper operating the x-ray machine. I can hear the other nurse, a middle aged Hispanic woman, saying "Oh lord, he actually said junk guard!!!" and bursting into fits of laughter. Hey, I call a spade a spade... and now I have an audience. Let the show begin.

The young nurse is giggling and telling me "Yes, Mr. Rice... bring your protective sheet." But my insistence on having her call it by its proper medical term (junk guard) only brings more hysterical laughter from the nurses. As I stand facing the machine, I can hear them in the control room, still cackling. Upon completion, the nurse re-enters, giggling to herself, and asks me to rotate around so that they can get an x-ray from the back side of my shoulder. As i rotate around, my common sense kicks in and I put the junk guard behind my ass. I'd like to avoid radiation from that angle too, but apparently this is just too much for the funny bones of my nurses and I must wait for them to regain composure before completing my final x-ray. As a nurse leads me back to my exam room, I can still hear them laughing from down the hall. Mission accomplished.

Dr. Gargantuan returned to my exam room and looked at x-rays, as did I. They fascinate me, seeing the inner workings of my own body. The doctor looked at all of the prints and pulled out his little voice recorder to continue the analysis. I listened hard, but all I really got out of his mile-a-minute rambling was something about me being normal. After he clicked his voice caddy off, he turned to me and donned back his "let me put this in short, simple words for you" voice. I'd normally get upset if someone takes this tone with me, since I would normally perceive it as condescending. But this time I was okay with it, knowing that he was indeed vastly smarter than me. He explained that because of a muscular imbalance from the front to the back of my shoulder, I was getting irritation caused by my shoulder pinching tendons in my rotator cuff. In more humorous terms, you could say the front part of my shoulder is like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the back of it is more like Macaulay Culkin. The kind doctor was optimistic that this was very fixable and that I was lucky I caught it in early stages. He prescribed me some anti-inflammatory and sent me to the physical therapy department upstairs. As I thanked him and left, I thought about what this man's life must be like. He has a huge natural advantage over most men, in both mind and body. There's no denying that he is what society considers to be "a very successful man." He must have the Alpha-Male gene, as he seemed like a natural born leader. I wondered what it would be like to walk a mile in his very large shoes. I wondered if his socially-conventional "success" made him any happier than the average guy you see on the street. I'll let you, the reader, mull that one over in your head.

I walked up to the physical therapy office upstairs and checked in. After taking my seat, an older woman who had checked in came and sat close to me. She walked with a limp, looked as if she had been sweating the entire day, and smelled like cat piss and body odor. I am now aggravated, because it seems as if this happens to me in every waiting room. Will this be the day I let stinkylady know just how mad I am at her lack of basic personal hygiene? Nope. I will, however, bitch about it via text message to my girlfriend Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn has been over-the-top supportive of me while I've been battling this injury, and I make a mental note of that as I am called in to see the physical therapist. I need to get this girl a card or something, she rocks.

I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that my therapist is a guy I know, Drew. He is a bit older than me and has seen me play acoustic a couple times before. I appreciate his compliments on my music, congratulate him on his upcoming wedding, and we get down to business. He looks at my file quickly, and informs me that what could be a big cause of my muscular imbalance is actually playing guitar on stage. The whole motion of that allows the front part of the shoulder to do most of the work and the back part to relax. Considering how much I've been playing lately, this makes a lot of sense. Plus my poor posture also may be causing the problem. Drew shows me some workouts to strengthen my shoulder, gives me advice on getting rid of the pain, and sends me home in a much better mood.

When I arrived at Tri State Orthopedic that day, I feared the worst; I didn't want to have to get another surgery for an athletic injury. The helpless feeling following the surgery crushes my spirit. You temporarily lose your independence, and being quite an independent person, this causes me a lot of hard times. But after that visit, I had the tools and the knowledge to make myself better. Now its time for me to get to work on getting better. Thanks for reading.

P.S. Here is a picture I grabbed from a computer screen of my X-Ray: