It was 2005 when I dislocated my shoulder. I’d love to tell you I was rescuing children from a burning building during a hike across Peru, because the truth is embarrassing.

I was with a friend on a downward-moving escalator in a mall in Dubai, and we accidentally passed the level where the car was parked. We decided to run back up the escalator.

Near the top, I slipped and fell forward, my left arm still on the handrail. I knew things weren’t good, first because of the clear ripping sound from my shoulder, and later the feeling of nausea that preceded the pain.

The mall staff were great — they produced a wheelchair, called an ambulance and got me out to the front of the mall to wait for it. It didn’t take too long, but with the pain building in waves to agony and beyond, it felt like months.

I imagined the paramedics would pop my shoulder back in, and send me on my way, but to my dismay I was to be taken to hospital.

Step on it!

I looked forward to being rushed there, and indeed the ambulance driver wasn’t wasting any time.

But the paramedic popped a device onto my finger and listened to my heartbeat, and announced, “Code green, code green” to the driver, who, I swear, hit the brakes and slowed right down, switching off the siren, before stopping leisurely at every traffic light.

Looking back now, it makes sense, but at the time I was miffed. Do you know how much a dislocated shoulder hurts? Put that siren right back on and step on it!

I’m remembering all this ten years later, because I finally went into surgery to correct the problem that began on that escalator. The torn cartilage never healed properly and I was treated to a series of little dislocations over the years.

The first one after the big one was when I was bolting our front door at night, and turned to sneeze at the same time. The surgeon told me of a motorcycle rider who suffered a re-dislocation when waving to someone on the road, and crashed into a wall.

Each time there’s a dislocation, it gets easier for the next one to happen, but the pain doesn’t seem to become any less blinding (it actually brings tears to the eyes).

The surgery essentially involved getting into the shoulder and tightening it up with a stitch or two, including one that would help the cartilage, known as the “labrum”, to finally heal.

Pre-surgery indignities

The night before the operation, as I sat, perfectly healthy, but confined to a hospital room, I thought about that moment on the escalator when the idea to horse around entered my head. If I’d made the decision to not be silly, I wouldn’t be enduring pre-surgery indignities.

And then I remembered the other times with my escalator friend, when we had been tempted to monkey about, and one of us had said, “Uh uh, remember the shoulder!”, thereby saving us from far worse incidents like dropping babies and falling down the sides of mountains.

That first scratch on your car is heartbreaking, but after you’ve had it for a number of years, its battered look becomes a source of pride, a lesson in every dent and ding.

As long as things that affect its operation are fixed, there’s something so satisfying about a product that has been properly used, and carries the physical imprint of those moments, each one a little lesson.

When you’ve been silly, though? All you can do is be glad it wasn’t worse and make up stories about saving children in Peru.

Gautam Raja is a journalist based in the United States.