Say Cheese! But Don't Wave.

Day 10 - What is your best physical feature?

After my friend Veronica posted her amazing physical feature blog the other day, anything that I have to say on the topic would just seem vain and/or superfluous.  If you haven't read this amazing blog about the stupidity of thigh gaps and the fact that women really are desirable at any size, you should click the link and then share it will all your friends.  Male or female.

I'll answer the question and state that my favorite physical feature is my smile.  However, I decided that since I wasn't going to go on about my best feature I would talk about the part of my body that I hate the most. Most women are going to go on to say their ass, or their thighs, or hell, even their knee fat.  Not me, I hate my right shoulder, which leads me to, some days, hate my right hand and arm.  Why you may ask?  Well...

One hot day, in the summer of 1994, a group of friends and I decided to walk to Pier Pool to go to teen swim.  It was the summer between 7th and 8th grade and pretty much all we did was walk around St. Johns and swim. As we were walking home that night a car turning left hit me while I was walking across the street.  According to the people that I was with, I flew up on the hood, smacked and broke the windshield with my shoulder and subsequently flew off the hood and bounced on the street.  I don't remember any of that.  I remember sitting in the middle of St. Louis telling everyone I was fine and that I wanted to go home all while my right arm was dangling out of the socket.

That was the only time I have ever ridden in an ambulance.  They strapped me to a board, loaded me in the back and I'll never forget that the EMT and I had a conversation about the fact that my double jointed elbows make them stronger than regular elbows.  I had always thought the opposite.

After many tests in the ER it was discovered that I had a torn rotator cuff and they put my shoulder back in the socket.  Throughout the next year I dislocated my shoulder nine more times.  I managed to put it back in place every time with the assistance of a friend or my mom.  It hurt like crazy but it always felt so much better after I put it back in, so there was no way I was going to wait to get to the doctor when I could just take care of it myself (interesting, that's still my philosophy about going to the doctor).  The last time I dislocated it I couldn't get it back in myself so Dad took me to the ER.  We refer to that as the night of the infamous Miss Piggy joke.  I was 14 and hopped up on pain killers and some drug they gave me to make me forget that they were about to shove my arm back in place.

Me: Hey Dad, why can't Miss Piggy count to 70?
Dad: I don't know.  Why?
Me: Cus' when she get's to 69 she's got a frog in her throat.

I think that may still be my dads favorite joke.

Anyway, after that I had to have surgery to repair my rotator cuff.  There's a pin and some fake stuff in there to make it work.  Surgery was awful and I had to go to physical therapy to get my arm to work again.  The first couple years after surgery were okay.  It didn't bother me too much.  I was a cheerleader for three years for goodness sake.  Talk about stress on the shoulder.  I was probably about 20 when it started to bother me again. And boy does it bother me.

I don't remember the last time I woke up and my shoulder didn't hurt in some way or another.  I baby it, and that causes muscle knots in my back and shoulder that don't go away.  I take muscle relaxers on a semi-regular basis.  There are some days that my shoulder hurts so bad that my fingers don't work.  Days that I go completely left handed because my entire right arm hurts too much to move.  When it get's cold outside the pain increases and mobility decreases.  It's annoying and awful.

Now, you  may be thinking "Your right shoulder doesn't have to be your least favorite body part.  Go to the doctor, then it could be your thighs, like a normal girl."  Here's the problem.  I read a couple of years ago that rotator cuff repair lasts about ten years.  It's kind of like knee surgery and has to be redone.  It's been seventeen years! If I go to a doctor the likelihood that I will have to go through the hell of that surgery again is pretty high.  I'm 30 something years old.  To have to have shoulder surgery every ten years for the rest of my life in asinine.

So if I ask you if you have a prescription for Flexeril it's because I'm out and my arm won't work.  Also, if you ever need a good laugh just remember the snazzy jingle that my friends came up with after I got hit by a car. "Rachel got ran over by a green scirocco/walking home from Pier Pool yesterday". Yes, it is to the tune of Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer.  Laugh away.