e and it was the worst news I had ever heard. The time I missed from hockey was one of the most difficult periods I had been through up to that point. The doctor at the hospital referred me to a physiotherapist, whom I met with three times. The physiotherapist, who seemed to be a little unfamiliar with my injury, gave me an exercise program that was supposed to heal my shoulder. Because the doctor and physiotherapist I initially met with were not sports specialists I would later be confronted with the fact that a dislocated shoulder takes more than just a few weeks to heal and it can’t actually be determined how long it takes until it has been healed. I religiously followed the exercise program given to me by my physiotherapist but was seeing minimal improvement. After the initial three weeks was over I was still in a great deal of pain and still had trouble moving my arm. As obvious as the fact that I could not play was, I still tried to convince my parents that I could return to playing hockey. They felt it was better for me to have it checked by a specialist. Because I was still feeling pain I decide to take their advice. My dad arranged an appointment with one of the top orthopaedic/sports medicine specialists in Nova Scotia. She examined my shoulder and found that my previous rehabilitative regime was ineffective, the damage was worse than I had thought and she told me that I would not be able to participate in any contact sport for the next three to six weeks. A referral from this doctor sent me to a physiotherapist and then a kinesiologist who gave me a different, more rigorous exercise program that produced great improvement to my shoulder. This program was much harder physically and took much more commitment to follow. I was getting up one hour earlier for school each morning so that I could do the exercises twice a day. I had never had to work so hard at something before in my life but returning to hockey as soon as poss...
