In the middle of our life in Dunedin I had a pre planned trip to Queenstown with my beautiful bridesmaids. So I flew from Dunedin back to Auckland to get on a plane to fly to Queenstown so I could fly back to Auckland to get on a plane to Dunedin. It was all a bit confusing.

Last years bridesmaids event I fell over on the last night and broke my foot, I then got home and whilst hobbling down the hall I caught my right toe on the door and broke that too… then I got Covid!  So this years theme was CAREFUL. And I was… very careful… until the last night. We walked around a corner and there was one step that I missed in the dark. I grabbed a rail with my right arm before I landed on the ground and that was that.

Both bridesmaids came round the corner and I’m on the ground with a bouncer standing over me.

“Oh Jen what the fuck have you done!”

Well, it turned out I’d dislocated my shoulder. My right humerus (not funny in the slightest) was about 6 centimetres from where it was supposed to be (nice and comfy and in a joint socket). While I was sitting on the ground working out what the hell I was going to do, a guy walked around the corner tripped on the step and smacked his head into the wall. “Yeah it happens all the time” the bouncer said. “We’ve been trying to tell the council to do something about it”. 

None of that helped me when I realised I was a 10 on the pain scale and was absolutely going to need some help to get this back in.  After ringing 111 they said it’s probably easier to get an Uber to the hospital as they had a wait time of about 3 hours. It was 2 degrees so we decided to do that instead of freezing to death on the ground. 

After a pretty horrific trip where I focussed on my giving birth breathing and everyone was worried I was going to puke, we arrived to a fairly empty Frankton hospital. Within about 10 minutes I was sucking on gas and boy did I laugh.

I laughed so hard! The A&E doctor laughed! Both bridesmaids pissed themself!  Then two clunks later I have never been so relieved in my life. Yes it was still sore but the relief of it being back in took over from that. “Oh thank god… thank god!”

20 minutes after arriving I was in a sling and in an uber and on my way back to the Air BnB.

The story from Nigel’s end is that he was already worried that I might hurt myself considering my bad balance, especially in the dark.  So when he went on Life360 to see if we were back at the apartment yet and saw I was at Frankton hospital… he knew it was me. 

About 5 minutes after my arm was clunked in and before the gas had worn off I received a text. “Why are you at the hospital?” I quickly rang and said everything’s fine but I dislocated my shoulder but it’s back in now and I’ll call you later. 

We were back to the apartment within a couple of hours of falling down and I could ring and sob my heart out about how no one will ever want to go anywhere with me ever again because I’m such a liability.  I know that’s not the case but at that moment that’s how I felt.

I’m now 11 weeks post dislocation and my physio is using me as a poster child for shoulder rehabilitation. I learned that needling (acupuncture into the muscle) is the weirdest/ickiest thing to do on a Wednesday.  That shoulder strapping makes you look like a loose head prop and that if it clunks with no pain then that’s not too much to worry about.  I’m consistent with my exercises to strengthen the muscles to hold the bone in place and my mobility is coming back really well.

I had three goals when I started Physio: 1. To hook my own bra. 2. To play pool and 3. To be able to put my luggage in the overhead locker all by myself! Gradually over the weeks I’ve ticked all these boxes and I’m feeling way more confident.

My physios last words to me have been… You’ve done great, keep up the exercises and …

Don’t do it again!!