Problems at Practice.

Four practices into our travel ball season, the shoulder pains I experienced in the town ball season two months before started acting up again.  During the town ball season, I didn't think much of the pain and treated it as a pulled muscle. Well, turns out, the pain did have to do with my muscles, but it wasn't pulled. I have multidirection instability; MDI for short.  That's when muscles are too weak to stay joints in place. I was really upset when I heard that I wasn't able to play for six weeks.

At the beginning of the practice I noticed that everyone's throw was so much stronger then mine.  All the energy I was trying to use was half of all my teammates'.  The more I tried to throw stronger, the more noticeably weak my throw was.  My coach also saw that my throw wasn't the same as it usually is and kept an watched me throw for a while.

The more I participated during practice, the more I tried hiding the pain.  I was able to tell that I was working harder than everyone else because I was able to smell  the thin layer of sweat starting to form on my body, while everyone was still cooled off.

When my team was practicing throwing from outfield to home, my shoulder reached the climax of its pain and I heard my coach call out to me, "Maria, are you alright? Do you need a break?" Not enjoying sitting out of practice, I replied no and continued throwing.  My turn came again and as I threw the ball into home I made a loud grunt of pain and again I heard my coach call out, "Maria, this time I'm not giving you an option, go rest your arm."  So I went and sat in the dugout.

So while I'm icing my arm in the dugoout, I take of sip of my tangy gatorade that I bought before practice started.  I sat the rest of the practice, so I walked to the consession stand and bought myself Sour Patch Kids, which made the gatorade I was drinking taste extra sour.

As the practice ended I stood up and felt the rough gravel on my flipflops.  I felt weak and helpless as I went into the huddle with my team and was told the news for our upcoming practice and tournament.  Unfortunally, I wasn't able to play in either of them because of my shoulder.