Going to the doctor is nerve wracking, especially when you know something is wrong. However, there are things you never want or expect to hear at the age of 15; including, ‘you’ll live with this for the rest of your life.’
When, my doctor told me this I felt as though my world was coming crashing down. While my condition was by no means fatal or shortened the length of my life, it was quite derivational to my quality of life.
For two and a half years, I could not raise my arms above shoulder level or hold any weight over 2 pounds. Luckily, my condition worsened until I required surgery, which leaves with a full recovery in six months.
At the beginning of this process, I was diagnosed with capsulitis and an instability in both shoulders. This meant that there was extra space in between my joints and the muscles had gotten inflamed and filled in the extra space.
It was the pain of the muscles being ground upon by the bones that alerted us to the issue. I was given exercises from my physical therapist to do and told to rest my arm as much as possible.
The only problem with this was that the injury was discovered at the very beginning of my first season as a Varsity swimmer. This meant that both my coach and I were itching for me to get back to training. Consequently I did not end up getting the rest I needed.
Eventually it was this sense of urgency to get back to doing what I loved that caused me to have to give it up for a long, long time. By junior year my pain was too severe and the thought of furthering the injury gave me too much anxiety to continue on.
However now I am reaching the end of my struggle and the only regret I have is not properly taking care of my body from the start. All I can say is that on June 23rd, there should be no question where to find me.