Blood will tell

Last night I had a call from my brother. He sounded the same as always: cheerful, a bit abrupt, but then we are a family of abruptness and tersity on the phone. Several months ago my dad copied my cell phone message, so that if you call him you’ll hear him state his name and then suggest you send him an email. (I realized the other day I need to change mine, because there are times I am highly receptive to a message, like when I am trying to score a last-minute haircut from my neighbor or . . . actually, that’s pretty much it for telephonal urgency.)

But Ryan called because he had dislocated his right shoulder while playing raquetball. He said that, and I knew at once that several things would be different for him. I knew he’d have some serious decisions to make before he submits his missionary papers in January. I knew he’d probably never play raquetball, or tennis, again, and maybe never swim the crawl again. I knew that immediately he’d have pain and weakness, and later, a lingering ache.

And right then, I knew we had to get his shoulder back in, because the wrongness of it being out it is almost as distressing as the pain. His roommates were with him, and I spoke with Phillip who, besides being a mechanical engineering student like Ryan and the son of a doctor like Ryan, is also our cousin. I tried to describe the three-dimensional spatial manipulation he needed to do to bring Ryan relief. My dad taught Mr. Bennet and me an acronym (Tension, External, Movement, Internal) to remember the procedure years ago, and I stumbled through that.

I was a bit hazy at first. It’s been a couple years since I’ve needed a shoulder reduction, and we had also just gotten off an airplane. I was simply grateful that I actually had my phone near me, that it wasn’t dead, and that I had felt like answering it, for once. It’s a difficult process to articulate over the phone, definitely something easier to show than tell, even to someone like Phillip.

(Now is probably a good time to say that my orthopedic surgeon says nerve damage is not the concern with our sort of problem, and that this post is not intended as medical advice. Please do not take it as such, and if you do, do not even think of suing me if you hurt yourself. I would be tempted to countersue you for being a dumbass.)

I am the oldest of five children, and Ryan, the youngest, is fourteen years younger. I dislocated my shoulder for the first time when I was only a few months older than Ryan is now. Perhaps his injury is different. Perhaps it was an isolated incident. Perhaps he does not have the same sort of weak connective tissue I have that causes my joints to hyperextend and to be much more flexible than my flabby frame would suggest.

Perhaps he will not require two surgeries, physical therapy, and a slightly altered view of what life will look like, day to day. (Perhaps he will never worry about dropping his newborn if his shoulder comes out at the wrong moment.)

But if it is, if his shoulder is like mine, he should know: 1) It could be worse. (Of course it could always be much, much worse.) 2) Still, it is bad enough, and if it prevents him from serving a strenuous mission, or from joining the military like he is considering and like my dad and my other brother have, then I am sorry. So, so sorry. 3) I know a great orthopedic surgeon, and now that we know what it took to really fix the problem, how extensive the damage can be, surely he can get it fixed earlier and to much greater effect.

Is it true that we have more genetic material in common with our siblings than with our parents or our children? Ryan and I have the same coloring, the same height (he says he is taller, but that is wishful thinking). He goes to the same college I did (but then so does everyone in our family). We share a temper, an arrogant opinionatedness, a way of seeing things in black and white. Though I see more grays every year, I am still partial to the absolutes. I had a talent for making our father mad, and Ryan’s talent was even more prodigious (or he is simply younger).

We are not completely alike, of course. Our childhoods were quite different, even with the same parents and similar DNA. I was told that Halloween was a pagan holiday to be shunned while Ryan was trotted around the local trunk-r-treat from infancy. Our adulthoods will be superficially very different too, mostly because we are what is called traditional.

But this physical flaw we probably (though hopefully not) share makes us seem conclusively alike. And it feels, irrationally, like my fault. Though if I were going to apologize for embodying a foreshadowed flaw fourteen years before my brother, I should apologize for my temper and impatience and susceptibility to addiction.

Because, 4) Physical flaws have much less to do with happiness than the other sorts of flaws.*

*(Unless you need a root canal, in which case, don’t even bother trying to be happy until you’ve been to the dentist. I only mention it because you might have teeth like mine.)