Jennifer's Story

Jennifer Marinucci saw her life flash before he eyes when she was badly injured during a horseback riding accident. It was not a life-threatening injury, but she could tell from the severity of the pain that she was in trouble. 

Jennifer’s life is built around fitness. She owns a spin and barre studio in Limerick. She’s also a fitness wear brand ambassador, which requires her to workout at other gyms and fitness studios across the region. And she’s the mom of twins, which demands its own special kind of stamina. A major injury could undermine all of that.

She was admitted to a local hospital, but there was no consensus about how to proceed with her treatment. Surgery was presented as a possibility, but Jennifer says she was told that she may be just as well off if they allowed her shoulder to heal on its own. All the while, her pain only intensified. By this point, a couple days after the accident, her right shoulder felt like a knot of raw nerves. 

“It took me an hour-and-a-half just to settle down from going to the bathroom,” she says.

Jennifer couldn’t imagine going on like this for much longer, so she pushed for the surgery. But on the eve of her surgery, her surgeon at another hospital expressed his concern about doing it, and Jennifer reached her limit. A friend came and collected her and drove her to Penn Medicine.

“The drive was horrible, but from the second we pulled up, everything changed,” Jennifer says.

David L. Glaser, MD, Chief of Penn Medicine’s Shoulder and Elbow Service, determined that her shoulder was badly broken. 

Like It Never Happened

“Dr. Glaser admitted me and got my heart rate back under control. I was running on pure adrenaline because of the pain and stress to that point,” Jennifer says. “And then without any hesitation, he said I needed surgery, and he explained what it would entail.”

“We wanted the bone repair to be perfect because the anatomic result equals the functional result,” Dr. Glaser says. 
In other words, if he’s able to align her broken shoulder so that it sets like the break never occurred, the more likely full mobility would be restored to Jennifer’s shoulder.

Jennifer’s anatomic result, Dr. Glaser says, was “outstanding”.

“Her bone now looks like it’s completely healed. So she’ll be able to enjoy anything she wants to do without fear of hurting it again,” he says. “This injury and surgery will eventually be little more than a memory for her.” 

But it would still be another six to nine months before Jennifer could regain full use of her dominant shoulder. As soon as she was discharged from the hospital, she began applying all the same determination that she funneled into her career.

“I did everything Dr. Glaser told me to do. I trusted him completely,” she says. “He’d done his job, now I had to do mine.”

An Impatient Recovery

She worked with a physical therapist at home, gradually rebuilding strength and flexibility in the shoulder. Jennifer’s recovery wasn’t always a straightforward path, and she eventually grew to realize that her cautious mindset was an even greater obstacle than her healing shoulder.

“To get it to where it needed to be, I had to be willing to push through the discomfort,” she says.

And that’s how Jennifer, an avid golfer, came to find herself swinging a driver on the first tee that spring, a mere three months after her surgery. It was far from perfect and it was hardly pain-free, but it was definitely progress.

There would be a number of times over the coming months when Jennifer thought she maybe pushed her shoulder too far. Each time, she called Dr. Glaser and he said, “Come in. Let’s have a look.”

“Having someone like Dr. Glaser, with no hubris, no ego, throughout all of this really gave me peace of mind and the confidence to approach my recovery without hesitation,” Jennifer says.

More than 10 years removed now, days will go by without even a thought about her shoulder. On others, it can feel a little tight. But Jennifer also maintains the activity level of an elite athlete. During a given week, she does spin and barre, she runs, she does yoga, and, of course, she plays golf.

“I do handstands,” she says. “There’s nothing I can’t do.”

On the rare occasion when Jennifer needs a little motivation, she pulls out an x-ray of her surgically-repaired shoulder with the stainless-steel plate that helped it mend. It takes her right back to all the pain and fear that swirled around that moment.

“Dr. Glaser saved me,” she says.