Eli Manning

Eli Manning went down this past weekend with a separated shoulder. He's the quarterback for the New York Giants professional football team, just in case no one knew. At first, they said he would miss a month, but now they are saying he might be back for the game this coming weekend. Wow.

The reason I mention this is because 3 months ago, I separated my shoulder. It took me well over a month before I could rotate my arm without any pain, and it is just now reaching a point where I can throw normally. Yes, it has affected my softball playing time. I've actually played catcher and first base a bunch lately, because, while I can catch, I can't throw the ball. I started back at softball by rolling the ball back to the pitcher or heaving it underhand (which didn't hurt), and then moved to first base where I often had to pretend I was able to throw the ball.

When it first happened, people asked me if I injured it playing sports since I play a lot of them. I kinda smiled and hesitantly said "nope". Although I do play some rough sports here and there, I hurt my arm in a manner that is quite laughable. I had just wrapped up meeting a potential supplier on my work campus and was carrying some stuff back to my desk. As I stepped over a curb, my heal caught the edge of it and I fell...onto the pavement. I put my arm out to break the fall, but since I was carrying some stuff, I kinda landed awkward. As I tried to get up, I realized my shoulder was out of its socket. Luckily, as I began to sit up, it went back into the socket. Yeah, I know....eeewwwwww!

I walked back to my desk and basically went back to work. My arm didn't hurt that bad as long as I didn't move it....and even if I went to the hospital, there really wasn't much they could do. I just kept it immobilized and watched for any type of swelling. When I raised (or tried to raise) my arm above my head, it hurt...but that was about it.

I was lucky my shoulder went back into the socket, though. If it hadn't, I'm sure the extent of the injury would have been much worse. It's considered a mild separation, so I'm fortunate. I also wonder if the injury was lessened since I still have a lot of muscle in my shoulders. Perhaps having a little bit of the boy muscle around helped to ease the severity of the possible injury.

Either way, though, I still wonder how Eli is going to play less than a week after the same type of separation. If he's on some major drugs, he could be ruining his arm by continuing to play with the injury.