Chapter Seven
There were IV tubes in my right arm and a sling on my left arm when I woke completely in the emergency room at Kaiser. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. The first thing I did was move the top of my hospital gown to look at my throbbing shoulder. It was a deep reddish purple color; not the cool black and blue you see in the movies. And, to my surprise, it still hurt super-mega-horrible bad. A hurt so bad it takes your breath away. I felt a warm hand squeeze mine; Jack was sitting in the stiffly padded hospital chair next to my bed.
“Have you been here the whole time?”
“You’ve only been out for a couple of hours; but, yes, I’ve been here the entire time.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, the tears starting to form behind my closed eyelids as the voices floated in from the hallway.
“…and she should be fine within a couple of days. She’ll need to rest up for a couple of weeks, but there should be no lasting effects. From what your daughter’s friend told us, it seems to be an isolated incident.”
“Will she be able to continue doing gymnastics, Doctor Sinclair?” Mom asked quietly.
“I don’t see a problem. Like I said, this appears to be an isolated incident.”
“They’ll be here any minute,” Jack said softly.
“Mom and Dad will be mad at me,” I whispered back.
“They’re just going to be glad you’re okay. The camp called them and explained what happened. They would have been here sooner but they had to pick everyone up. I sorta left everyone stranded at camp when we brought you to the hospital.”
I closed my eyes and started to cry; big fat tears leaked from under my eyelashes.
“Don’t cry, Little Queen. You heard the doctor. You’re going to be fine.”
“I’m so stupid,” I choked out. “It’s all my fault. Are you sure they won’t be mad?”
“I’m sure. But, if you need a dose of courage, squeeze my hand and I’ll squeeze yours back. It’ll be our secret code.”
I nodded, still hiccupping quietly from holding back my sobs.
The doctor entered the room first, wearing a long white coat and a stethoscope. The entire family, starting with Mom and Dad, who was carrying Alexander, followed her to the bedside. The room was packed; I’m pretty sure that we exceeded the maximum capacity. Half of us probably would have been too many in the tiny room.
“Hi, Catherine. I’m Doctor Sinclair. I just wanted to tell you what happened to your shoulder and how we fixed it.”
I nodded. I got the distinct impression that Doctor Sinclair wasn’t one to mess around when it came to medical information. She looked friendly, but serious. Her hair, which hung loosely about her shoulders, was also pulled away from her face and secured with a tortoise shell clip. She wore a pair of purple wire rimmed glasses, hardly normal eye wear for a medical professional. She reminded me of a hip, younger Mrs. Claus.
“What occurred was a subluxation, which means the head of the upper arm bone - the humerus - was completely out of the socket. Complete dislocation usually causes pain and unsteadiness in the shoulder.”
“Her shoulder was completely dislocated?” Dad asked.
“Yes. I placed the ball of the upper arm bone back into the joint socket. The process is called a closed reduction. Severe pain should have stopped almost immediately once the shoulder joint was back in place.”
The doctor went on to explain more than I ever wanted to know about shoulders.
“The shoulder joint is the body's most mobile joint. It can turn in many directions. But, this advantage also makes the shoulder an easy joint to dislocate. The shoulder joint can dislocate forward, backward, or downward. The most common type of shoulder dislocation is when the shoulder slips forward. This means the upper arm bone moved forward and down out of its joint. It is often called anterior instability. This is what happened to your shoulder. I feel that in order for your body to heal quickly, you need to know what is happening to your body. ”
“Is her shoulder permanently damaged?” Mom asked.
“It’s true that sometimes dislocation may tear ligaments or tendons in the shoulder or damage nerves. I don’t think that’s the case here.”
“I’ll be okay? That means I’ll be able to compete then, right?”
“You’ll need to wear that sling for a few weeks. I’ll want to see you again in four weeks. When you come back, if your shoulder is doing well and the x-rays come back clean, I’ll give you some physical therapy exercises to work on to build the strength in your shoulder.”
“Cool. When can I go home?”
“I have the discharge papers right here. You’re free just as soon as I remove that IV.”
Luka was practically bouncing by the time the doctor finally removed my IV.
“Can we talk yet?” he demanded.
I wondered why everyone had been so quiet. Even Alexander had been silent during the Doctor Sinclair’s speech. Dad smiled and ruffled his hair.
“Yes. Your mom and I really appreciate you guys behaving.”
“You ok, Rin?” Luka asked gently.
“You gave us quite a scare,” Inara said shakily. “We were terribly worried.”
I suspected she had been crying since she found out what happened.
“I’m sorry,” I said contritely, squeezing Jack’s hand. “I didn’t mean to cause anyone any problems.”
Jack squeezed my hand just as Mom said, “You didn’t cause any problems Rin. Why don’t you tell us what happened.”
“I don’t know. I was showing Trisha when to release from the ground on a front handspring and my arm collapsed beneath me.”
“You have some nasty bruising on your shoulder and on your side,” Dad told me. “Your ribs are probably going to hurt for a few days.”
“I crashed into the ground when I fell,” I explained. “I saw my shoulder. It’s disgusting.”
“Let me see,” Luka demanded.
“Yeah,” James added. “Disgusting for girls means cool for guys. Show us your battle scars.”
“I have battle scars,” Phaedra said. “Remember that time I fell off the couch and bruised my whole leg, Mom?”
I heard Mom sigh deeply as I pulled the top of my gown aside to show everybody my new skin color. I must have imagined it, because when I looked over at her while Luka and James moved closer to inspect the area, she was looking at me with pity in her eyes.
“On the positive side, Rin, you still have the rest of summer to heal. You won’t have to wear that fashionable sling on the first day of school.”
Mom smiled when she said it, but I could tell she was worried. I knew she was worried about the hospital bills. Mom and Dad both made good money, six figures as Dad put it, and Mom always said we had good health insurance, but there were a lot of us and we didn’t need any extra bills.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Jack squeezed my hands. “I’ll get an after school job to help out with the hospital bills.”
“Oh, honey. Is that what you’re worried about?” Mom asked; her eyebrows rose so high they were hidden behind her bangs. “I should have known.”
“Don’t you worry about the money for one second, Catherine.” Dad said sympathetically.
“You need to focus on your shoulder, honey. You leave paying the bills to your dad and me. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
My tears started flowing again; they stopped when Luka broke the tension.
“Like you could get an after school job. Who’d hire you?”
“Allow me, fair maiden,” Jack offered chivalrously in a fake English accent before smacking Luka in the face with a thin hospital pillow. “Take that, you scoundrel.”
Before a pillow war could destroy any expensive equipment, Mom and Dad hurried everyone out of the room allowing me to get dressed in private. I managed to get the sling and hospital gown off, struggled into my pants and was just starting to panic when Inara popped her head through the door. She kept her eyes closed until after I had gratefully accepted her offer of help.
We appeared in the hallway just in time to see Luka toss a package of gauze to James, NFL style. Mom started to explode, but Dad saw us and interceded.
“Let’s go home, Gwen. We’ll take Catherine and Alexander; Jack, you take everybody else in the Durango.”
“Will do, Captain,” Jack said, saluting smartly.