It sounds like it could be a club name. Where fake-tanned pop-collar douchebags go to pick up skinny bottle-blond half-dressed whores on platform shoes.
But no. It's a crappy thing I keep doing to myself. Oh well, I had to go to PT anyway, so I might as well get my money's worth.
It hurt a lot more when it came out this time-- I saw stars and had to sit down (well, after finishing the jam) and sort myself out. Yes, yes, of course I was playing roller derby at the time. Phooey. I had a brace on, which was damned uncomfortable, but it was a variable-support brace, and I'd braced it to prevent my shoulder going backward, which was how it came out before, or so I'd thought-- last night it came out forward. Blegh.
I forgot to make my appointment for PT when at the doctor the other day, so I will have to do that. This will just remind me to do it.

The orthotics guy called and told me about the brace they could order for me. (I'm borrowing one right now from a friend who had shoulder surgery, and it's an adjustable one. It sucks to skate in. Not only was it ineffective, it also was made of neoprene and felt like I was like a baked potato in a microwave-- seriously, I walked up a flight of stairs with my skate bag and almost passed out.) Apparently I have a deductible *and* a co-pay, so basically I'd be paying the full $450 price tag on the item myself. Urgh. I'll see what the PT guy says first.

Queen City Roller Girls' travel team, the Lake Effect Furies, handily defeated the Gotham Girls' B-team, the Wall Street Traitors, in a 40-minute expo bout tonight. It was pretty awesome to watch (I watched it via live streaming video on derbynewsnetwork.com, but should you be interested, the footage is available there archived), especially because it was our intro to the Derby News Network crowd.

I am very, very sad we couldn't go, though. Z was going to go as the mascot, and he would've had a great time-- Gotham has Jeerleaders, and the headlining bout of the night was Charm City Roller Girls, out of Baltimore-- they wear yellow jerseys and have a mascot, a guy in a banana suit called Bane-Ana, who got up to some ridiculously amusing shenanigans with the Jeerleaders.
The Lake Effect Furry would've had a blast with them.

You might be a derby girl when: a medical professional says to you, "You might wanna lay off the roller derby until we see how the [course of treatment] goes," and you say, "Hm, well, what conditions do I have to meet in order to not have to make with the laying off?" and he looks at you like you have four heads. Straightjacket, here I come!!!

More seriously, I skated last night and it hurt (skating doesn't hurt, but we scrimmaged, and I gave an assist using my arm, which was OK, but then I had some chick fall sprawling in front of me and I had nowhere to go but to land on her head, which is great, except I hit my arm on the landing, and oh! my! not so great! wow!). So today I called the sports medicine group, and they said Come right in tonight we have a 6pm appointment. Oh! Uh, OK! I said, and did so.
I spent like 20 minutes filling out paperwork (I! have health insurance! that covers this! weeee! This is so great!); before I was even done some nice young lady came and took me to X-ray me from many angles, and then I went right in to see one Dr. Darling, who was indeed darling, and much younger than you'd think. He was charmingly friendly, and thumped on me in lots of ways. "Does that hurt?" "No." "How about this?" "Nn, well, ok." "How about th--" "AUGH."
After much prodding and testing and poking, he determined that I most likely had a shoulder subluxation last Saturday. What that means is that it's a partial dislocation; the head of the humerus doesn't slide all the way out of the socket of the shoulder, but it does partially.
He seemed relatively unfazed by my demonstration that that's part of my normal range of motion for my shoulder-- which is what perplexes me about the injury. I can "pop" my shoulder out easily, and often do-- when opening a door I sometimes let it slide out, because it kinda slingshots back in. It just, I dunno, goes that way, in order to complete the motion of the joint. I pop the joint out to get at my bra strap because I can't reach otherwise. The problem on Saturday was that it was "out", and i put pressure on the elbow at an angle, so it was pulled out of its normal range of motion. So it hurts now because I can't let it pop out to do what I normally do, because all the bits that hold it in are so sore from getting pushed on way too hard.

Anyway, Dr. Darling informed me that I did not in fact tear any rotator cuff anything, and indeed my rotator cuffs are rockin'. (I forget his actual word, but he seemed impressed at how well-developed the muscles were.) But he is worried that the shoulder could sublux again, and even fully dislocate, and that could result in a labral tear. So he's worried for my labrum. I had to Google that.
Ohhhhh.
Hey neat!
So I spent like two hours tonight reading about shoulder anatomy. (And I'm not a freak-- it's right in Grey's Anatomy that the shoulder capsule is loose enough to allow the bones to go up to 2.5cm out of contact-- so I'm perfectly normal in being able to pop my shoulders out.)

He said, however, I "might wanna lay off the roller derby" until we'd had a chance to try a course of physical therapy treatment. I looked at him, and he said, "No, huh?"
"It's the end of the season," I said. "Championships are coming up. I have a scrimmage on Sunday. There's... I really can't not skate. Is there anything I can do to minimize the damage I do to myself in the meantime?"
He didn't take a lot of persuading. He's treated half my team. He knows how this is.
"We could get you a brace to limit motion of the joint," he said.

While he was off talking to the orthotics guy I texted my teammate Hyper Bean. We call her Robo-Bean. She missed half the season, two seasons ago, to rotator cuff surgery, and now wears a motion-restrictive brace that makes her look a bit like the Terminator. She texted me back, and gave me the "good" brand name and the "bad" one, as well as fitting advice. And she offered to bring both to practice tonight so I could see them. I know my injury is different from hers, but my body is a similar size to hers.

So I am waiting for a call from the orthotic guy, but in the meantime i have a The Sully, which is a neoprene hook-and-loop octopus of a torture device. I have tried it on and understand how it works and now know what to ask for and what to ask NOT for. Also these are not designed for humans with breasts. Which is, oddly enough, just about half the adult population, but you know, nobody seems to notice that. W-evs!