Cracking Nuts

I’m happy to announce I can check off another milestone on this journey: my first post-surgery performances! This year’s Nutcracker has come and gone, and it will always be special to me as my first time back on stage, complete with one new scar and a profound gratitude for being able to dance again.

The weekend was so busy that it’s kind of a blur — much like this picture, which is what you get when you ask your husband (the oh-so-willing party scene parent and unitard-wearing Mouse King) to take pictures from backstage.

I was too busy to get many pictures, but here are a few more shots from Nutcracker:

Stage dirt on the front edge of the pointe shoe platforms. After dealing with 5+ months of swelling in the back of one’s right ankle, this is a glorious sight.

Stage makeup. Rawr.

That awkward moment when you show up for warm-up, makeup half done and dressed like a Red Hat lady. (This jacket is purple, not blue, in real life.)

With my parents, brother, and husband after Friday night’s performance

Flowers from my family!

It was such a wonderful feeling to get through a long week of rehearsals, warm-up classes, and performances with minimal pain. Now I’m enjoying two weeks off before classes start up again in January. I’m looking forward to getting back en pointe in earnest — aside from the minimal pointe work in the Nutcracker party scene and working on my own to rebuild strength, I haven’t really danced en pointe in a challenging, meaningful way in six months. Gulp. I plan to start with a lower level class than I was taking before surgery, just to make sure I don’t do too much too soon. But I'm feeling strong and the swelling and pain I was having en pointe is much improved, so I'm hoping it won't be too tough to get back where I was.

I may pop in to blogland occasionally and update, but since I’ve been discharged from physical therapy and deemed well on my way to being 100% again, I probably won’t have any major news to share.

 

I hope anyone who is dealing with os trigonum or FHL tendon issues, or just injuries and recovery in general, has found this blog helpful. If anything, it’s an honest reflection of my experiences, which have included pain, frustration, and sadness along the way. But now that I'm more or less on the other side of this journey, I’m truly thankful for this experience. My ankle feels better than it has in years, and I’m a stronger dancer and person because of what I’ve been through over the last six months.

 

As always, thank you for reading! I hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. May it bring you new hope and new beginnings (I, for one, can't wait)!

Graduated!

Hi everyone! (I start this post as if people are reading it. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?) I hope any Americans reading this had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are fully recovered from turkey comas. I took last week off work to spend time with my family, including my younger brother, who lives in Los Angeles and hasn’t been home for six months. There was much wine, lounging, fishing off the dock (my parents live on a lake), and delicious food. However, with Nutcracker coming up soon, I tried to load up on the veggies — my Spanish costume is really not made to accommodate a food baby.

Speaking of ballet, I have some good news: One week shy of my 5-month surgiversary, I became a physical therapy graduate! I had an appointment last Monday, and according to my PT, everything is looking great. My range of motion (pointing, flexing, demi plié, releve), measures the same on both feet, and at this point, I probably have around 80 percent of the strength in my right ankle as I do in my left. So, even though I am officially discharged, I still have strength and proprioception exercises to do, and I need to be careful to keep my ankle and calf stretched out. If I don’t stretch for a day or two, I notice a big difference in the tightness of my ankle.

So where does that leave me? Ready to crack some nuts in just 11 days, enjoy a restful break over Christmas, and come back in the New Year ready for a fresh start, which will hopefully involve coming back to pointe class. I’m still working on pointe on my own, and although I still get sore more quickly than I would like, it’s improving slowly but surely. This weekend I noticed that the entire platform of my right pointe shoe is dirty, not just the back edge — after having a chunk of broken bone removed from one’s ankle, that feels like a tremendous accomplishment!

As challenging as 2012 has been in many ways, it’s been a transformative year for me, in no small part due to my surgery and rehab. This might sound like holiday-season cheese, but I truly believe now that this all happened for a reason — I’ve learned and grown so much along the way. Also, I am so thankful to have a wonderful physical therapist and surgeon on this journey with me. I don’t think I would be where I am right now without them. In addition to helping me heal physically, they have given me hope that I frankly didn’t have six months ago. After a year and a half of not getting any answers, I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I might have to stop dancing or just be in pain forever.  Now I’m looking forward to many more years of doing what I love — and that makes it all worthwhile.

Merde to all the dancers out there getting ready for Nutcracker or other holiday performances! I’ll post photos from mine, so stay tuned, and as always, thanks for reading!

Dear Brave Girl

Good morning, everyone! I'm heading out soon for a long day of class and Nutcracker rehearsals (it feels so good to say that!), but I wanted to quickly share a message from one of my favorite websites, Brave Girls Club. Along with fabulous online courses and workshops, they offer free "Daily Truth" e-mails that I always find inspiring. I thought today's was fitting for this blog and beautifully captures the process of recovery. Enjoy!

Dear Brave Girl,

One step forward, one step forward, one step forward. Two steps forward and one step back. Three steps forward, three steps back. Five steps forward, two steps back. No, this is NOT a math lesson. This is LIFE, lovely girl!

Please don't freak out or beat yourself up when you have setbacks. You are not a failure. You did not make bad plans and your steps backward do not determine your worth as a human being.

Sometimes we think we have things figured out, or that we have overcome something, and then it returns to our lives in a different way, leaving us to feel like we have failed in some way. What this actually is, is a beautiful new chance to learn and grow, and it shows up right when we are ready to take it on, even if it seems otherwise.

Remember that life is a process -- all of it. There are lots of finish lines, not just one. We get to start new climbs, new races, every day. Some days we are moving forward effortlessly, some days we are learning to work through life in other ways. It's all good, and it's all necessary. And you are doing a tremendous job. Reach for the gifts found in the setbacks and decide that tomorrow is a brand new day.

Have a fabulous weekend. You are so very loved.

xoxo

A message from your friends at the Brave Girls Club - www.bravegirlsclub.com

Brighter Days

Happy fall, everybody! After a gorgeous drive along Indiana highways (during which I took way too many cell-phone pictures of the trees), I was in Naptown earlier this week for physical therapy, so I thought I'd post an update.

I'm approaching four months post-op and am happy to say that I'm feeling much more positive about this whole situation than when I posted my vlog last month. (Thanks to everyone who hung in there for the whole 9+ minutes...sheesh, I talk a lot! I guess I finally got to fulfill my '90s teenage dream of spilling my guts in the Real World confessional booth...)

Anyway, I've been doing pretty well lately. I'm getting through technique class with very few modifications, if any, and am becoming a lot more consistent in terms of my pain levels and what I'm able to do without getting too sore or tired. I started petit allegro a couple weeks ago, which gave me floppy "fish foot" at first due to my ankle being weak, but it's shaping up -- good thing, because I love petit allegro. (Crazy, right?!) I also attempted grand allegro last night, with my PT's OK. I felt it afterward, but I was so happy to move like that for the first time in almost four months! I always have and probably always will love to jump. At least until I'm 85 or so.

OK, now the not-so-good news. I'm still not back en pointe due to pain and a jammed feeling in the back of my ankle, even though I'm only doing super-basic things for short periods of time. I had my pointe shoes on for part of my physical therapy appointment this week, and it was not pretty. I can't get all the way over on my foot that had surgery, and if I push harder to try and get over my box, it really hurts -- and that's coming from someone who feels like she's built up a pretty legit pain tolerance over the last couple years. My PT said I probably still have some swelling from surgery and that I likely will until six months out, which blows my mind. (Also, best quote of the day: "You have good feet...and one angry ankle!") So for now, I'm just keeping at it, hoping it will slowly start to feel better.

Due to all this, I decided to sit out Snow and Flowers for Nutcracker this year because there's just no way I'll be ready for all the pointe work. I'm a teeny bit sad because Snow rehearsals started this week and OMG the sparkly white tutus! (out comes my inner six-year-old), but I was pleasantly surprised to get cast in Spanish, with character shoes. I'm glad that my teachers found a way for me to still be involved, and mostly, I'm relieved that I don't have to slap a deadline on this whole healing process by rushing to get back en pointe.

This experience has been a huge lesson in patience and letting my body work things out on its own terms. (I also turned 27 last week, so maybe it's just old age bringing me new wisdom?) Either way, I've learned and grown so much along this journey, and it isn't over yet! I have another PT appointment in a month, so I'll update again then, if not sooner. Until then, thanks for reading! And, uh, enjoy this snapshot of my evening: how my Great Dane mix is currently snoozing as I write.

Decency, sir.

Blessed.

Three months ago, my foot looked like this:

Today, it looks like this:

"You know, there are creams you can put on that," my mom told me this summer. But for once, I'm OK with being imperfect — I don't want to hide my flaws or deny that they are part of who I am. For the rest of my life, I will dance with a skinny red scar that reminds me I am human...that sometimes I break and need to be stitched back together. The process isn't without pain, tears, and frustration. But it is teaching me so much about who I am and who I can become. You don't know how brave you can be until it's the only choice you have if you want to move forward.

Tonight, I'm giving thanks for new beginnings, everyday angels, broken roads that lead us exactly where we're meant to be, and a scar that will never let me forget.

Bad Lights. Bad Camera. Action?

Trying something new this time: a video blog update in which I tell tales of torture boots, fight a Pilates reformer (and lose), and try not to get too teary-eyed while talking into a camera. Without further ado...

Back in Black (And Pink)

Once again, I've let this blog languish, but rest assured that no news is good news. I'm 11 weeks out from surgery and have been back to ballet for three weeks. My heart is happy, and I'm finally starting to feel like a dancer again! My first class back, I was the happiest girl ever -- I grinned like a goon all the way through barre. Although the back of my ankle is still stiff and sore when I point my foot, it is nothing compared to the searing pain I had before surgery, and I'm feeling less pain and more confidence every time I take class. At this point, I'm doing a full barre with some modifications. (For those who are interested and appreciate ballet jargon, this means no striking on frappes, holding balances on flat instead of releve, and doing some combinations at half tempo -- such as tendus and degages -- because pointing my foot too fast makes my ankle sore and tired.) I can usually get through the first two or three combinations in center, and while I'm not jumping or doing pointe work yet, I can feel myself getting stronger and hope I will be there soon.

I'm also happy to report that my last physical therapy appointment brought much more positive news than the one before it! In three weeks, I gained 15 degrees of plantar flexion (pointing), which is a huge relief -- especially since my pointed foot still doesn't look great, and my PT told me not to worry because it will come. (I think her exact words were, "This is not going to be a good time for your foot. Make your peace with it!") So, while my ankle continues to heal, I'm doing a lot of hip and glute strengthening exercises to get my body back in dancin' shape.

Every evening, I also have the pleasure of slathering my incision site with cocoa butter and digging into it with the handle of a dinner knife. The purpose of this medieval torture activity is to break up scar tissue and make sure that it doesn't restrict my range of motion or get tangled up with the many nerve endings in that part of the ankle. It's excruciating, but my scar does feel a little smoother. At the very least, it's well moisturized and smells like chocolate...

I see my surgeon and physical therapist a week from today, probably for the last time (at least for the surgeon -- I'm not sure how many more PT sessions I'll have after this). It's weird to feel this journey starting to wind down. I won't miss the 3 1/2-hour drives to Indianapolis each way, but oddly enough, I've always looked forward to these appointments. It's nice to know where I stand in my recovery and get advice on how I can keep improving.

Lately I've gotten a lot of questions and comments from friends/acquaintances along the lines of "So you're all better now?" and "I can't even tell you had surgery!" It's true that I can wear regular shoes, walk around without limping, and perform all the normal functions I need to get through a day. I'm thankful for that, especially since I couldn't do any of those things a couple months ago, but that doesn't begin to cover what I need to dance -- to fulfill the passions and aspirations that add magic into my life. Dancing is part of my soul, and it's hard to take things slowly and have so many restrictions and uncertainties. This story is by no means over and there are still many question marks, namely to what extent I'll be able to perform in Nutcracker this year (we start rehearsals in just over a month, and I'm not even back on pointe yet). That's another question I've been getting a lot lately!

This summer has been a crazy rollercoaster of ups and downs, but I'm comforted by the fact that I don't have to go through it by myself. I was listening to the Weepies song I posted on here a few weeks ago (the one with the Ted Mosby puppet in the video!) and was surprised to find that I'm in a very different frame of mind these days. "Now you do it on your own/But you find you're all alone..." is how I may have felt at times during my recovery, but the truth is that I have never walked alone on this journey. I'm surrounded by angels in the form of friends, family, coworkers, dance teachers, doctors, nurses, physical therapists, clinic assistants...they're all pulling for me. They care how I'm feeling both physically and mentally, and their encouragement keeps me going on the hard days when I feel so far from where I want to be. A heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported me throughout this process and continues to hang in there with me!