Much as it may sound like I am an incurable walking injury , I actually managed to make it through the next couple of years without any major damage (unless you count the nervous breakdown, but that (as hammy the hamster used to say) is another story). That is, until I reached the sixth grade. On a fateful day during a typically cold (but not nearly as cold as we'd like the rest of the world to believe) Southern Ontario winter day I managed to lose the use of my right arm for two weeks.
How did this happen? Well, in grade school playgrounds there is often a two-sided pyramid formed out of half logs, and St. Mary choir and music school was no exception. And in the middle of winter (in Canada anyway) these pyramids get snow covered and turn into big icy slides, again can't say that our school was any different. Because of this marvel of wintry delight the upper grade students in the playground had decided to play a modified version of king of the castle. Doesn't sound so bad, but this version involved knocking the kings off the top of the pyramid to go sliding down the other side. This also, not so bad. But when a very small eleven-year boy achieved the wondrous pleasure of being king for a moment, a child but one year older had to snatch it (and him) away. Had the (not so great) rules been followed a bump or two may have ensued. But the older boy, losing his balance, latched onto that tiny young man and rode him down the other side like a luge down a half-pipe. Once more, not so terrible. But you see, those snow covered half-logs apparently weren't quite so snow covered and they acted as unusually effective hammers against the exposed right shoulder of the scared little lad. And as he (okay, I) got up at the bottom of the treacherous slope I noticed the fact that my hand was brushing my knee. Which in itself isn't so strange, but then I realized that I was standing upright. And unless you're a member of a lower order of primates that really isn't supposed to happen.
So there I was, my arm hanging by nothing more than a couple of tendons and my toque ground into the snow at my feet. Had I gone to the doctor then things might not have been too bad. But you see, I was lucky, my friend Jason knew how to set dislocated shoulders (or so he said, since it had happened to him before). Apparently, you just lift it level with your shoulder and pop the little bugger back in. Simple enough, I suppose, if the tendons connecting your shoulder to your arm aren't stretched thin and hanging down in between. As it was, my friend (even being eleven himself) managed to garner enough force to jam that arm right back in there: bone, tendons, muscles and all together right into that joint.
Now, even though I had shown fairly poor judgment up to this point, there was still the option at this point to visit the doc. But you see, most of my formative years at school involved me pretending to an illness or injury of one sort or another to get myself out of school (and get a little desperately needed attention while I was at it (but that falls into that nervous breakdown category and I'll save that for another time)). As it so happened, though, whenever I was really sick or injured I had no desire to bother anyone with my problems. So I spent the rest of the afternoon in class, while my shoulder grew progressively larger and turned an incredibly wonderful shade of purple (kind of like Grimace - I'd have said Barney, but that was after my time, and this is a period piece). When my teachers finally noticed this, and believe me it took them some time (you see, my teachers put a great deal of effort into ignoring me - which wasn't their fault mind, you'd ignore a kid too if all he ever did was argue constantly, waste time in class and generally annoy the living hell out of every poor under-paid, over worked teacher he ever ran into), they tried to get me to call my mom. I refused and said I was fine, and they believed me too, right up until about the time my shirt no longer fit around the bulbous swollen mass of flesh that had once been my tender little childish joint.
So mom came a running and I was whisked off to the family doctor. Upon seeing my shoulder and tsking appropriately my doctor proceeded to round up the nurses to hold me down (for, as she had the foresight to realize, she was going to need help with this one). They filed into the small exam room where I was de-robed from the waist up with the aid of a pair of scissors and placed, legs a dangling, on the exam table. The doctor pulled out a flat piece of plastic and started to carry it towards me, fearing for my nether regions I proceeded to squirm. But it wasn't quite so dignified, as it turned out. She popped the plastic stick into my mouth, told me to bite down, had the two extra nurses and my mom hold my three non-over bloated limbs and grabbed hold of my tortured flesh with both hands. My teeth clamped, she yanked and out popped my shoulder for the second time that day. At this point she asked (caring nothing as to what my answer would be) how I was doing, and twisted my arm straight up into the air. I was still in the process of mumbling some garbled, pain riddled answer around the choke toy in my teeth when my right arm came down into the socket like the hammer of God and I bore witness to the most impressive fireworks display I have seen to date.
I awoke shortly thereafter feeling remarkably happy and unhurt lying on my back and wondering how ceiling tiles with so many little holes could hold up the next floor. Ahh, the wonders of prescription strength codeine...How I miss them so (and you knew who you were then...boys were boys and girls were men...TV shows looked crazy wacky wild and Herbert Hoover was a man I could use apparently - I watched a lot of TV during the next couple of days while I recuperated, though I didn't understand any of it). After learning how to whine effectively about not being able to write with my left hand (so I couldn't take notes or write tests for the next two weeks) my arm healed and the school placed a rail on either side of the pyramid in the schoolyard. Because, of course, that would prevent children from getting injured sliding down the middle of the slide...under other children like what happened to me.