There aren’t too many things that I regret.  But if there is one thing that I do regret, it would be not going back to gymnastics after I had surgery and was okay to go back.  When I was younger, gymnastics was pretty much my everything.  There were only two places where I was every truly happy, my house and gymnastics.  Some people might ask, what about school, weren’t you ever happy at school? No, I hated school, I didn’t mind the work, I just hated the people.  So gymnastics was my escape from all the bullshit I dealt with at school.  Gymnastics was a challenge, and I loved the challenge that gymnastics gave me.  Eventually, the toll of training caught up with me.  My left shoulder started bothering me, and I really thought nothing of it, until it became constant.  Even through the pain, I kept going to practice and kept competing.  Eventually, I had to quit.  I quit for three weeks, and went back.  The pain never went away.  I went to a bunch of doctors, and I didn’t like the answers that they gave me, the answers weren’t concrete.  The last doctor I went to gave me the best answer as to what the issue was.  My shoulders, both of them are hyper extensive, my left one was subluxive.  My left shoulder would pop out and pop back in, on it’s own, and I never knew when it did that.  I tried physical therapy, but that didn’t really help at all.  Nothing seemed to be working.  So at 16 years old, I told the doctor whatever is wrong with my shoulder, I wanted it fixed, I asked for surgery, and on June 30, 2004 I had surgery.  I was in a sling for six weeks, and then did six weeks of physical therapy.  Eventually I was told that I could go back to doing gymnastics, and I was extremely happy to hear it.  But for some reason, I never went back.  It’s hard for me sometimes to watch competitions on tv, because it makes me miss it.  I miss it all the time, but there is no way that I could go back now.  You can take the girl out of gymnastics, but you can never take the gymnastics out of the girl, and once a gymnast always a gymnast.