Recovery: Day 42 - Bootless!

Today's my first day without the boot!

It feels weird, haha. My foot is hurting but not too bad...it's mostly on the outside of my ankle from being stiff and not using it for so long. Supposedly that will go away. It's nowhere near as bad as it used to be pre-surgery, though, so that's a plus.

As I walk without the boot I'm still hobbling a bit. It hurts when I flex and stretch to the extreme, so rolling through my foot in normal parallel as I walk hurts. I walk with one turned out foot exagerating the step because I'm used to stepping onto a big platform boot with added weight. Strange. I'm sure I'll get over it soon (I hope, hah).

It's amazing to be free from the boot, and it was more amazing to try barre last night. I've missed making a bun and getting warmed up and standing in my usual spot. Class itself was sort of amusing because I can barely plie. I can't releve yet. And I tried to do 5th position but it hurt, so I did all of barre from 1st. Hey, it's a start. I made it through all of barre until frappes, when I used the "stop while you're ahead" tactic. I'm really trying to make an effort to listen to my body and come back slow because I KNOW I don't want to do that and I must. I do not want to get hurt again...I can't go through this again...

Back to the City = Back to Insanity

Day 2 in the city and I'm exhausted.

Still haven't had time to blog about the trip back, and now I'm too dead tired to write about my insane day today. Tomorrow I'm not leaving this 3rd floor walkup apartment for a good long time - to get blogging done and, mostly, to rest my arms and foot. Crutches are...not fun in this city.

More tomorrow on my first day helping with Nutcracker rehearsals, a quick visit to class, and seeing an interesting performance. Now = sleep, if the insomnia will let me...

5 Days til Surgery :(

Everything's happening so fast.

Just a week and a half ago I found out I'd be having surgery on my left foot, and now it's just 5 days from the scary event.

I've been struggling with achilles bursitis for over 3 years, since I was still training full time at Ballet Academy East. I've done probably hundreds of performances on the bad foot, and thousands of ballet classes. Somehow - with the help of hefty doses of ibuprofen - I've managed to push through the pain like any true bunhead. But this summer it's just gotten progressively worse, forcing me to make the decision to suck it up, have the surgery, and get better.

There have been times over these years where it felt like nothing was wrong - 4 shows a day in pointe shoes and a bear head felt fantastic. But then without fail a week or so later I was back to feeling like the fibers were shredding every time I walked, nevermind plie'd or releved. It's a painful process, mentally almost more than physically, to be constantly fighting with your body and not knowing if it will hold up for all you ask of it.

In early July I was feeling okay. I had been in PT twice per week since April and seemed to be controlling the pain. I was in my usual class doing a typical petite allegro combination. It was crowded and I got myself into a corner with lots of bags dotting the floor, trying to dodge them between steps. I pushed off my left foot to do a back cabriole.

Snap.

I landed and froze.

It felt and sounded like I had just cracked my ankle like I do everyday, all day, like no big deal. But as I tried to walk to the side to sit down I could only hobble. I layed down and put my foot up on a stool while class finished the combination and flew through grande allegro. All I could think was "why did I have to do that combination a second time? I should've just stopped." I really did feel fine up until that very moment, which is why I kept dancing on it. Bad move, I guess.

I hobbled out after class and asked a nurse friend of mine to take a look at it. It was visibly swollen and I literally could not put my foot flat, let alone put weight on it. Somehow I got dressed and hobbled outside to the corner. The studio we were in has floor to ceiling windows on street level, and a friend of mine told me later she saw me struggling outside.

I grabbed a cab and went straight to a friend's apartment, where he graciously fixed me an ice bath and ran to get me an ace bandage. I knew I was in trouble. The rest of the night I just could not walk.

I was a week away from performances at the Latin Choreographers Festival with Exit 12 Dance Company and we had rehearsal the next day. I took a cab to the studio and hobbled at a snail's pace from the corner to the entrance of the building. 3 flights of stairs. Uh oh. I had to turn sideways to get up the stairs one at a time - putting full weight or rolling through the foot was NOT an option.

I made it up eventually and tried to "dance" on one foot. It was bad timing because that day we had visitors in rehearsal: Philip and Kokyat from Oberon's Grove taking pictures and observing. I could hardly even mark my part in the piece because everything sort of required 2 functioning feet. The picture they took kind of cracks me up because a) you can see my gigantic ace bandage through my tights, and b) my foot is flat and ugly where it's supposed to be pointed and pretty in the piece.

Anyways, after that rehearsal I stayed off it for a week, scrambling to get a doctor's appointment at The Harkness Center, where I had gone back in March to start PT. It is NOT easy to get in anywhere on short notice - good thing it wasn't a serious emergency! A teacher friend of mine happened to know somebody who knew somebody that worked in the office of one of the biggest dance doctors in the city, and with some cajoling I got an appointment for a few days later.

The doctor took an x-ray that showed nothing and then sent me for an MRI. Meanwhile, performances were looming days away. Don't ask me how, but I did them. All of them. On pointe. I limped offstage the second the lights were down, but I got through the shows. Ah, the magic of performance.

The MRI had shown that my bursa was indeed super inflamed, as I already knew. But there was also a small tear in my achilles tendon. And what was causing all of this apparently was "Haglund's Deformity." My heel bone actually comes to a sharp point in the back rather than a smooth rounded edge, and that is digging into my tendon. The answer: PT and rest.

So I did - for a while. I took probably 2 weeks completely off from class, but then I felt like I could at least get through barre. It was not a happy barre, but it was better than nothing a few times per week. That's pretty much how the rest of the summer has been, which is terribly stifling compared to how much dancing I had been doing! My NYTimes article came out in the midst of all this (actually on the day of our last performance that weekend) and I so hoped that would lead to more dancing.

I continued to push through rehearsals a few days a week and barre on occasion, but the foot was just not getting better. PT was doing absolutely nothing. It still hurt just to walk, nevermind dance. I got through one last performance weekend this past weekend with some choreography modifications and cutting back to smaller roles. But I just had to perform again...knowing I wouldn't get to do so for a while...

Last Monday I went back to the doctor for my follow up and told him it wasn't getting better. The last resort, as he had told me in July, was surgery. Having not solidified the job dancing this winter that I had hoped for, I agreed that now was the time. So here we are.

I'm terrified.

I'm scared of the actual procedure - of being at the hospital, of the anesthesia, of the pain. I'm scared of the immediate recovery period - of being on crutches for a month, of being dependent on others to help me out, of the pain. And I'm scared of the long term recovery - of being away from dance so long, of struggling to regain my technique, of the pain, physical and mental, of stopping.

I have to believe that this is what's best for my dancing in the long run. They will be removing the inflamed bursa and shaving down the heel bone so it no longer digs in. It should not return after that - I should be pain free. I certainly hope so after all this. But it's just been such a long fight. It will be such a relief in January or so when I'm fully back to dancing and fully pain-free in pointe shoes!

I had a few other gigs lined up for the fall that I'm sad to turn down - working on a video project with a choreographer friend, doing a brand new Nutcracker in Connecticut, this solo residency work thing...but I think it's best if I'm back and better for audition season.

Until then...

rain = pain

Can someone share with me the actual scientific reason why rain and humid weather causes my entire body and all my joints to ache horribly? I KNOW I'm not the only one who experiences this...

Class was rather painful this morning...doesn't help that it's Monday morning, which is an excuse unto itself.

monthly private lesson

Today since my teacher came back from her week-long vacation (seemed longer!) I had my monthly private lesson with her. It really should be called more of a torture session than a "lesson" haha. She says so herself.

It was great though. I'm going to be majorly sore. Since I don't have a variation that I'm working on at the moment, we did more class type stuff to get deep into little details I caught in myself while watching my audition video footage. I showed her some of the video on my ipod and together we really picked some things apart. It was painful, haha, but really good. Being tortured is good once in a while haha.

I took class beforehand since I didn't have time to take class yesterday and I didn't want Monday to feel like Monday since I thought I'd have to be filling in during rehearsal. But I came home to an email saying reharsal tomorrow is cancelled. So there goes that plan, haha. Good though, because I have more time to get some work done since a lot has piled up the past week.

Pretty busy week ahead this week as well. Tuesday and Wednesday I get to fill in for people during rehearsal, Wednesday I teach as usual, Thursday and Friday my boss at the New Yorker is away so I get to be him and do his jobs so that should be good (and slightly stressful). Next weekend I'm going home for all of 48 hours for Easter. Should be fun.

choreography week 5

Today was another class of work with the high school kids I'm working with. We have a tentative performance date for May 16, and it's taken us a month to get a minute into the dance. Eek! So I knew it was time to crack down today and get lots of work done.

Luckily the kids were up for it. Because there are so many of them and we work in a very small studio, I had to break up the choreography into small groups so that they don't kill each other. I let the other groups sit down as I taught the phrase I was working with to a few of them at a time, so it kind of got noisy at times. I'm glad they listen to me though when I ask them to listen or pay attention. Since I'm only a year or so older than a lot of them I thought it might be difficult to be in the authority position, but fortunately it's all working out.

By the end of the rehearsal we did indeed get a lot done...almost a whole additional minute of choreography! It's fun to see them getting the steps and trying...when things work out it's like, yay! The piece is coming along...we have time.

Aside from that, the majority of the rest of my day was spent in class. Pointe class in the morning was quite good, because my teacher is trying to get me to work differently so that my foot will heal. Sometimes when I'm discouraged I feel like she can read my mind...she knows just what I need to hear, and I'm so thankful for that.

Originally my plan was to take a week off from class beginning tomorrow to rest my foot, since I'm going away for the weekend and all. BUT now that I found out I have rehearsals next week that plan is off. However while I AM away Friday-Monday, I won't be taking class so at least that's a few days...

I'm really looking forward to getting away...

massage!

Oh my goodness, I got a massage this morning and it was SO good.

As a dancer it's really best if you go for a massage often to keep your muscles loose and healthy and everything, but time and money don't always allow for frequent visits...I haven't been in farrr too long and given my foot issues I thought it was time.

He spent like 45 minutes on my one calf on the bad foot side. It was so painful...I'm hoping with muscles loosening up though maybe some of the dancing pain will go away? I don't know if that's directly related to bursitis, but it can't hurt right?

Before and after class I try to stretch and work through muscles that hurt or feel tight, but it's so hard to target the specific places on yourself. Tennis balls and foam rollers are dancers' best friends, but they don't reach every specific tight spot.

Anyways, I'm glad I finally went. I'm kind of more sore now than I was when I went in though, haha. Oh well.

Tonight I'm going to a dance and technology blogging seminar thing hosted by Doug of GreatDance. Should be interesting.