In our generation we’ve had the privilege of always having certain technologies and never knowing what life was like without them. Specifically, advances in the medical field have made this the generation that when anything is wrong, you go to the doctor. Today, people expect all of their children to survive. You don’t die from cholera or smallpox or hope to make it past 40. There have been many times that I had different ailments that took me to the hospital. A certain time that medical technology has made a difference in my life however was my shoulder surgery.

I played volleyball in High School and tore my labrum in my shoulder. It was an injury that made practicing and playing almost excruciating. After playing on a bad shoulder for nearly a month I finally set an appointment with an Orthopedic specialist. We started out having to do and X-ray and then an MRI to deduce what was wrong. At the MRI, they used an X-Ray machine to see a needle inject dye into my shoulder. The dye was then visible on the MRI scan to see if there were any abnormalities. The doctor was able to see the torn labrum and decided on a surgery.

The surgery was laparoscopic so I luckily only got two small scars instead of a giant one across my shoulder. My recovery time after my surgery was also cut down significantly. My shoulder was able to heal faster due to it being less invasive. I had about a month in a sling and three months of physical therapy before I was almost back to normal. Because of this surgery I was able to play volleyball again my senior year. Before these types of orthopedic advancements I either would have had to play in pain, or never play again. It also would have been an injury that affected my everyday life forever.

This, to me was a formative technological experience because it’s something that genuinely affected me and my daily life. Thinking about life without the surgery makes me appreciate the amazing things they can do. A possible effect of that injury would have been something called frozen shoulder, which is when your shoulder is unable to move at all. Even after the surgery physical therapy was the most important part of getting better. Without proper therapy, surgeries like that would be essentially useless. Therapy gets started about a week post surgery and it basically teaches your body how to work again. You lost all built up strength and movement and have to build it back up to move regularly.

Injuries like this affect more serious athletes everyday and surgeries are what make it possible for them to continue their careers. I chose this experience because it is something that is actually life changing not just to me. People ignore the basic technologies like this in favor of other technologies like genetic editing and artificial intelligence. However basic things like the medical field and primitive inventions were the trailblazers for current necessities.