janneychatter

Three weeks ago I had a surgery performed on my left shoulder.

The root cause: “Recurrent Shoulder Dislocation”.

First time I dislocated my shoulder whilst playing badminton with a friend of mine around 5 years back in a dingy sports club facility of my engineering college. I was shivering in pain, I was shouting, I did not have a clue what happened, but I was sure something in my left shoulder was out of place!!! I sat on the floor and turned and twisted …CLICK!....my arm was back in place but the pain persisted! I came home and told my mom that I sprained my shoulder coz that’s what even I thought!

After six months somebody mentioned to me that it could be a shoulder dislocation! Wow after six months I got a name for the misery I went thru! Henceforth I decided to remain cautious and never let my arm make any “dangerous” movements. Sometime later I could feel my shoulder feeling aright coz I had given lot of rest to it!

Late 2003, I was shooting for a short flick in Melbourne, Australia. I had pestered my Director in getting a “Doctor (Doc)” on the sets of the shoot. One fateful day, we were shooting on location at a suburban train station, whole day went off well, Doc had some urgent appointments in the evening so he left at around 6.45 pm. My call sheet expected me to be on location until 8 pm. I was just 1 hour away from being relived from the days work!!!! The crew was getting ready for the last take of the day, I was supposed to be in the frame.

Scene: co-actor (Simon) roughs me around all the while hurling abuses at me and finally pushes me against a fence. The scene ends with me showing my helplessness in not being able to help him (simon) in any respect!

Role of Doc in this take: make sure the actors don’t use any actions that could be harmful to the other actor in any sense; in other words understand the scene and give suggestions on how a particular movement could be harmful. But Doc was missing!!
We rehearsed the take and everything was well co-ordinated. Roughing up, abuses, his/my emotions, the final pushing against fence and the last facial expression.

Take: Simon got too involved in the character, he was involved so much so that I just had to reciprocate normally to his emotions (no great acting skills required!) the shot was coming through amazingly well. Final moments…. He got too involved and caught me by my shoulders.. and with all the power he had, he pushed me against the fence. CLICK….. my arm was out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
I screamed, screeched…. Doc was missing …BAD LUCK!.... The pain was tooooo much, I knew I could not put it back myself, I needed some morphine to calm me done (which I eventually got… don’t get this wrong I am not a drug addict) and I put back my arm!!
A shoulder specialist explained to me that this dislocation was very forced and it had made a lesion in Bankart (ligament in the shoulder joint) and a surgery is the only way out!
Now after surgery, my left arm is strapped to my body, doctor has adviced that my arm has to remain strapped for over 2 months, then my arm gets a sling which has to be on for 2 more months. I guess I would need 6 months to totally recover from this condition!
I wish nobody undergoes this pain, its toooo painful!

p.s : I guess I need some recognition for typing all these with just one hand…hehe. Pardon for typo errors if any. There are tiny funny fragments inside this story which I would elaborate next time!