Fire & Ice

thirtythree

Once I stopped I looked up and saw the ceiling. My body felt numb for a second while I caught my breath and slowly the rest of the world caught back up to me. First sound, second pain. I couldn't tell from where in body exactly, but I was definitely hurting. Becca was by my side already and reached a hand down for me to take. Slowly I went to lift my left arm up when blinding pain radiated through my shoulder.

"Fuck" I said finally feeling where the source of the pain was coming from. Becca and Toni helped pull me up as I cradled my left arm.

Becca called to Marissa and as soon as we got to the bench, Becca passed me off to our waiting trainer. Marissa held onto the top of my hockey pants and helped me into the dressing room.

"What is it?" Marissa asked as we got to my locker and she sat me down. I ripped my helmet off and tried to hold my arm still.

"It's my shoulder, I think she popped it completely out." I said and tried not to move it too much.

"Okay, you aren't going to like me for the next couple of minutes. I'm going to get this jersey off of you then put it back in place. I would say we should probably take you to the hospital to make sure there isn't any other damage but I have a feeling you are going to refuse that right now." Marissa said and started to peal my jersey off me.

"You're damn right I am, there is still another period to play. Just put it back in place, I'm go home for spring break and I can have a doctor look at it then. I need to be out on that ice." I pleaded.

"Okay, this going to be just like last time, just it's going to hurt worse, you might want to bite down on this." Marissa said and handed me a towel. I didn't say anything but just stuck an end into my mouth.

Just as she was moving some padding off my shoulder to get a look at it, the team started to come down the tunnel into the locker room. Oh this isn't going to be fun.

"Alright, I'm going to do it now McKenna, on three, one, two" Marissa didn't even wait to three, she pulled my arm straight and my shoulder popped back into place. It was a good thing the towel was in my mouth to muffle my scream of pain. As she finished my vision went black for what felt like a few seconds before something that stunk was placed under my nose. It woke me right up and I found Marissa sitting in front of me.

"You with me McKenna?" She asked.

"Why don't you wait till three before doing the painful thing?" I asked weakly needing a few seconds to recover from the shock.

"Good you're still with us. I gotta move it around for a few minutes. I'm going to put some tape on it and then you'll be good to go." Marissa said. I just nodded and closed my eyes.

The pain was barely there now as Marissa started to move my arm around to make sure my joint was good. I could hear coach talking with the team and I tried to perk up a bit to pay attention when a bottle of something orange was placed in my hand. I didn't even ask what it was, I just started to drink it.

The drink had to be some kind of orange juice, Gatorade and Pedialyte hybrid because it woke me right up. When Marissa was done with my shoulder, she helped me into a new jersey and I stood up on my own. I made a few movements with my arm to test it myself. The pain was still there but when we hit the ice I'm hoping the adrenaline will help take it away.

Coach gave us some new tips for the third period and before I knew it, we were all walking down the tunnel. The third period started just like the first two. Hard and fast. There was no slack after already playing two full periods of hockey. Both of our teams were hungry and wanted to take this championship with us back to our schools.