Thankfully, I’ve never been injured during Tech, but injured none the less.
I threw my back out at 14 and 17. Neither time involved theatre and my doctor is probably still confused. My back still hurts sometimes, but it's where I hold my stress. The arm injuries began in high school which was, of course, when I started theatre. My first one I'm still dealing with, I have severe carpal tunnel in my wrists and elbows from being a musician. Playing the oboe and being a percussionist takes a toll when you don't take care of yourself. Jump ahead two years and through a freak accident a week before graduation I had the tendons ripped in my right arm. (I'm right handed) This was of course the week of my first professional audition. (I dabbled in the acting thing. I didn't get cast, but they sure as hell remember the girl in the cast.) I wasn't supposed to lift a gallon of milk for 9-12 months. I didn't listen. I started at a conservatory studying the oboe and stage managing professionally at the same time. I had to drop the music major thing because of the pain and became a theatre major like I should have been in the first place. A year later, I finally got injured doing theatre. I was moving a table across a rehearsal hall and instead of asking someone to help I decided to drag it across the room by myself. Bad idea. The table collapsed and landed on my right arm causing contusions to the bone, a weird cast thing, and four weeks of physical therapy. Did I mention it was the first day of rehearsal? So when it happened, I sucked it up, took some Advil, grabbed an ice pack out of my kit, and took down blocking for the first act. When the pain didn't subside that afternoon, I went to the ER. I was in this weird cast for the entire production; two weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of shows. In theory, I'm all better. And the table is now at the bottom of a dumb somewhere! But I don't chance it anymore. I always ask for help because you never know what can happen.
Thankfully, the only time that I've had to sit out of anything at tech was an awful bout of the flu. Nothing to just brush off, but it just meant me sitting in a corner with tissues, tea, and a god mic. Not the best circumstances, but we all survived. My ASM rocked and one of the cast members brought me soup. I was sick, but loved.
The show will go on, whether I'm at 100% or not. People have a way of stepping in and making it happen. I was lucky, I learned very early to ask for help and to listen to my body when it's screaming NO! I can deal with pain but you have to weigh the circumstances. I think sitting out part of Tech is much better than pushing yourself until you've thrown your back out or broken something. SMs aren't very useful if we're in the hospital. But that's just me.
~Deb~
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