Trying to Remember What I Used to Know

Boss made an interesting observation tonight.

It was interesting in that it vocalized what had pretty much been going on in my head since I started back to dance–particularly in standard.

What he said is that he had observed that there were things I was doing pretty consistently before my surgery which I seemed to have forgotten about since I returned.

I have to agree with that, as one thing I have noticed during my lessons, particularly in standard, is that I have this scrambled feeling in my brain–like I am trying to grab onto all sorts of thoughts at the same time and translate that into my movements. As we move through different things, my mind jumps around from technical aspect to technical aspect to try and remember some of the things that were just on the cusp of becoming habits before surgery.

Different examples include allowing my feet to roll through the movements, stepping in CBMP going into turning figures (particularly natural figures), keeping my knees flexed, not turning out too far in promenade position and keeping my ribs forward to open up my position.

Boss has mentioned some of them, and some of them have come into my head as we review (although sometimes to the point of distracting me from other things I am supposed to be focusing on). I am sure there are still more I haven’t completely remembered. The biggest step seems to be remembering, and then consciously reworking them back into my dancing to remember the habit so I don’t have to think about them so much.

I hope, at least, that as things come up and we do more reviews, the ‘almost habits’ will slowly come back more consistently and continue building on what was developing before the surgery.

That said, today was a pretty productive lesson. We started with some of the standard drills that Boss has been developing for us to do together in Waltz and Tango. Both are made up of basic steps, but the point is to work through them using full technique and paying attention to all the details. In tango, it is also about developing some sharpness to the movement, and starting to differentiate between the different dances. That was just the warm-up, and from there we picked up where we left off yesterday with the Quickstep.

Thankfully, it seems my mind did process what we were trying to do yesterday and today I was better able to do what was needed in the hover corte.  I still hesitate a little in wanting to move my weight all the way over my right foot, but it is getting there more consistent. After reviewing that, we worked on the final step I needed to learn to finish the routine, which went quite well.  It will still need work, but I seem to have at least the basic understanding and we were able to do it in time and in some context.

We finished up working on foxtrot. When we worked with the coach last week, he made some small suggestions for changes in the final line of our routine, but we hadn’t had a chance to review it since then.  Tonight we went through it and refined it some.

Throughout my lessons, there are some small things Boss is drawing my attention to that apply through all routines and it gives me some detailed things to focus on as we work. One of the things I am discovering is that for a lot of the small points, while each has its own specifics, a recurring theme tends to be to let myself relax into things a little more and to try to not limit myself and the flow of movement. I tend to get rigid in some of my movements and in doing so, I don’t quite complete them.  It’s something to think about, and I wonder if that is part of the pre- and post-surgery difference–that I was starting to get move relaxed and confident about many of my techniques and the work I was doing, and now I am back to being more tentative again. I am almost trying too hard.

Which leads me to my final point tonight. I was going to stay and practice some after my lesson tonight, but at the end of my lesson, my entire body was screaming for a break and that it was done for the week, led by my knees which are quite inflamed between the return to dance, work and everything else. I have been trying to mitigate the flare up, but my success seems to be a little limited. I do have some ice, voltaren and tiger balm on them now to try to quiet them down.  I was told to expect this, I guess I am a little disappointed about how bad it is.

I didn’t stay and headed home as I can recognize that there is some bone-weariness creeping up on me, and my body needs the break.  I want to keep pushing, but my body isn’t ready for that yet and its a little frustrating. I am trying not to worry about it and let it get me down, but it is on my mind now and then. Part of me is afraid that this might be the beginning of going back to feeling as I was before surgery, although there is a distinct difference–particularly in energy level.  While I am tire and sore, I still have energy.  I am trying to have faith that it’s all normal and that with the break of the long weekend, and some planned rest, I will be ready to get back at things on Wednesday during my next lesson.

It’s not that I feel I have a lot to do, its more that there is a lot I want to do.

A lot I want to remember.

Bending the knee

It seems Jon Snow is not the only one reluctant to do this…

We were working on quickstep tonight (which for some reason seems like something I haven’t done in two years), and after starting with some clarification in the fishtail, we moved on to the hover corte, which is a new step for me in my gold routine.

Ever have a night where it seems like your mind and body just won’t work together?

That was me tonight. My mind understood (for the most part) what I needed to do, but my body just could not figure out how to consistently make it happen. That said, I am hopeful that it will be one of those things that once my mind has an opportunity to sleep on it (literally), it will process the information and start working out.

The root of the problem though seems to stem some from my knees, particularly my right knee.

As I have mentioned before, knee issues and knee pain have been an on-going thing for me since before cancer.  I tend towards patella femoral syndrome, which is an issue that takes a lot of time and strengthening to work out.  After 6 weeks off of activity, my knees were feeling pretty good, but of course returning to activity has caused them to flare up some (which I was told to expect). My right knee tends to be the instigator, and my left joins in when it has to compensate.

So what does this have to do with dance?

When my knees get sore, my mind starts to unconsciously compensate by avoiding bending them, and in particular by avoiding allowing me to put my weight on one of them at a time while bent.  It also knows that I tend to be more unstable when standing on a bent right leg.

Particularly in standard, I had been working on moving with bent legs through all my steps and to break myself of the habit of step on mostly straight legs. Part of it is a strength issue, the other is simply breaking habits and giving myself the permission to keep my legs bent. Stepping on a straight leg was one of the biggest issues tonight. What’s interesting, is that it was an issue almost always only when stepping on the right leg and having to rise.

Exactly what my body like to avoid doing.

I had a bit of a thought after I got home tonight and did an experiment that brought interesting results.  One of the things Boss seemed to be pointing out was that I had a reluctance to move my weight completely over my right leg when I know I will be changing direction, preferring to keep my weight more to left, and particularly to tend to thrust my right hip out to the side.

So, when I got home, I tried comparing what happens when I balance on each leg with a bent knee.  The result? I am quite stable and comfortable standing on a bent left knee, and it feels perfectly natural to do so without any help from my hip.  Standing on a bent right knee is a bit of a disaster.  I have to almost consciously think to keep my hip from falling out, and I can feel my foot moving back and forth to try to keep the balance.  I can also stand for a prolonged time on my left, but after 10 seconds on my right, I can feel my hip start to tire.

Well, that tells me where my body needs some concentrated work, beginning with just building endurance for standing on a bent right knee.

It’s an exercise I remember doing at some point 2-3 years ago.

I don’t know if that will help directly with dance (it can’t hurt, I suppose), but on top of that I will have to start forcing my mind to pay attention to how I am stepping on my right in standard–especially in pivoting or rising steps to start breaking my current habit and helping my body rebuild it’s strength.

Speaking of building strength, I have started doing 15 mins of body weight exercises at home every other day, mostly to help my knees (they are all exercises I was doing on direction from my trainer and physio before the surgery). Them plus pushups against the wall seem to be a good place to start with some strength training.

I also stayed to do some practice after my lesson tonight, although I compromised with myself and limited it to 30 minutes just to review my latin routines and some of the hand work I did last week. I also took some time to work on my traveling spins in paso and keeping my elbow in front of me, which was the second half of my lesson on Monday (natural rolls in samba was the first half). I couldn’t do quite as much as I wanted as I was feeling a bit light-headed and getting dizzy, so I erred on the side of caution and stopped spinning when my balance stopped cooperating.

I am finding myself a little more tired this week, but as my body is still adjusting to the stopping of the anti-depressants, and the return to work, its not unusual.  I also had a bit of a harder time sleeping Monday and Tuesday night with a sudden heat wave.  Since it cooled off today, I hope to sleep better tonight.

Speaking of sleep, over the next couple weeks I will be working on reducing the dose of my insomnia medication, another positive step. The reduction is in my control, but it seems that I am reaching the point where it will be possible, since a lot of the insomnia increasing medications are out of my system now. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

A lot of positive things going on, and thankfully nothing unexpected coming up (knock on wood!). There are a lot of gradual increases and I am keeping an eye on things as I go along.

8 Weeks until the competition. At this point, I am not too sure about how the preparation will go.  It seems like we are not quite covering as much in my lessons as Boss hopes, although I am optimistic it will pick up momentum once we get some of the major issues cleared up and out of the way.  Other than endurance in general (which is going to be an issue for some time), there is really only one routine I am completely unsure of (quickstep), one routine I lack some confidence in (especially in my ability to do it at full speed, paso), and a few routines with the odd step I am not sure about.  Its really not a bad place to be considering its been a week since I have started back to activity.

Overall, I am doing good. Looking forward to moving further on this path.

Lots to be optimistic about!

A Week of Small Victories

I meant to write sooner, but I got bogged down in a paper for school.

Despite the schoolwork, my week included several victories well beyond what I expected for my first week back at dance.

I am feeling small side effects from stopping the anti-depressant, but they are manageable with a little bit of nausea and light-headedness.  I hope that is how things stay. It should be cleared out of my system tomorrow but it will take 2 weeks for my system to fully adjust. Things look really promising.

But back to dance!

I had my coaching lessons on Wednesday as planned and they went amazing. We were able to get through everything we wanted to cover and even a couple extra things as a bonus. Despite it being 90 minutes straight, my energy stayed up.

After coaching, I had a small break, then a lesson with Boss. I lasted about another 45 minutes before my body started signalling it was reaching its maximum and not fully cooperating.  The good thing was that it was only fatigue, no pain or other issues. During the lesson, we were able to go through some more things from the coaching to reinforce it. Overall, I was pretty amazed at how long I was able to last–it was well beyond what I expected.

After that lesson, my next one was on Thursday and we were able to go through 4 of the 5 latin routines to review them and make some small adjustments. It was my first time doing latin after coming back I was also glad how well I went.  I was feeling a little strange from the lack of medication, and could tell I wasn’t completely on my game, but it still went better than I thought.  If anything, it lacked a little bit of the energy from the previous lessons, but in retrospect it all makes sense.

Yesterday, was like a bonus round for me. I didn’t have a lesson, but I felt the need to blow off some steam and clear my head after a big push on my school paper, so I went to the studio for practice.  I was able to work 50 minutes pretty flat out before I started feeling fatigue seeping into my body. It was enough time to sort out the hand movements for 4 of my latin routines–at least movements that work for me.

The trick now is to first remember what they were, and hope that they work with Boss as well as they do on my own. There may be some places where Boss’s position in my head doesn’t match reality, or we might be in hold and I am not so free to move.  At a minimum, I hope that none of the movements will end up accidentally hitting Boss.

I am not sure when we will try them together, but I am going to work at reinforcing them into my own practice, and I guess we will go from there.

My next lesson is Monday, so I am taking it easy this weekend and enjoying the facebook live streams from George Pytlik of Delta Dance from the Canadian Closed Championships in Gatineau, Quebec. If it weren’t for surgery, this comp would have been high on the list for consideration, and I am glad to see some live footage from it!

I am looking forward to next week. Boss should have enough information to put together his plan for the next 8 weeks (eep! only 8 weeks!) until the competition in Calgary.  I am trying not to sweat it (except for doing some actual sweating!), reminding myself that the goal for this competition is not to be at full perfection, but to get back on the floor with full effort.

It’s been a revealing week, but a great one. I am finally starting to feel like the dancer I was before I got sick–full of drive, motivation, discipline and effort, and I hope it continues.

Monday I start back half days to work and I am looking forward to putting all of this behind me.

the end of 2017 is looking like a great lead up to a great 2018!

(Bonus shout out to The Girl with the Tree Tattoo who is getting ready to compete next weekend at the Embassy Ball! Your prep looks great and good luck!!)

Back on the Floor!

Yes, finally!!

I was cleared to return to all activities yesterday, and I celebrated by having a lesson. 9 weeks until the competition, so a lot of work to do.

The lesson last night was very interesting and telling.

It ended up being later in the evening than I usually have a lesson and I was worried I would be too tired, but I was so anxious to get back on the floor I pushed it aside.

It was good that I did.

The start of the lesson was really really rough. We were working on standard since I have a couple coaching lessons this week and we started by reviewing and walking through our gold routines. I really felt like a wet blanket with no strength, and my mind was racing in about 50 different directions as my body tried to figure out what was going on. By the time we finished walking through the quickstep, I was honestly feeling quite panicked, and really couldn’t figure out what was going on.

We took a bit of a break before looking at specific parts of the routines that we will focus on for the coaching.

It turned out that break was what my mind needed to reconnect with my body and to trust that my body knew and was capable of doing what it needed.

After that, it was like the weight I have been carrying on my shoulders for the last 6 months disappeared. I felt my mind relax and organize itself, and as Boss and I prepared to work through one segment of our waltz, everything just came back together.

Actually, it came together better than it has in a longer time than I can remember.

It was like I needed the rough start for my mind to assess the state of my body and once it decided that all the movements were ok, it gave permission.  I could use my full strength and power, was able to move into full hold and to follow what Boss was doing. By the end of the lesson we were even traveling significantly more down the floor than we have in a very long time.

The best way I can describe the feeling is to say I felt free and free to dance. There wasn’t anything holding me back anymore–no hormone issues, no depression, no muscle weakness, no fuzzy head, and no fatigue.

In fact, I felt more energized after the lesson than I was before it–something that hasn’t happened since before I was diagnosed. I had honestly forgotten what that feels like.

I was able to ask my body to do things, and it responded–usually better than I expected, and much more than I have become used to.

Needless to say, I was pretty shocked and overwhelmed. I found confidence in my movement that had been missing for a very long time.

Aside from completely surprising myself, Boss seemed to be completely over the moon. I don’t think he has said he was pleased so many times in a lesson before. Considering how my previous recoveries and issues with treatments have gone, I can’t blame him–this ‘comeback’ is in a class by itself. He commented that I was dancing better than he was prepared for.

A lot of pieces that were only just swirling around in pieces before my surgery seemed to click into place while I was recovering. It’s a testament to how even when you have to take a break physically, mentally your mind may still be working. I could almost feel them all fall into place.

Of course, that’s not to say that everything was easy. It has been 6 weeks since I have really done any activity except light walking in the last 2 weeks. I was getting winded easy, and my pulse was racing. I could feel how out of shape and out of conditioning I am. It’s going to take a lot of work to get that moving forward again. While I could do full power in short segments, I know that attempting even one full routine at that power would be pretty draining. Overall, the lesson was fantastically terrible–a lot of success mixed with hard work that demonstrates there is a lot more to be done.

But its baby steps. The foundation is there. I achieve beyond my own goal in that lesson, in that after the initial ‘trial’, I was able to push myself fully through the rest of the lesson without giving up. While this lesson was hard, the next will be a little easier and I will be able to push longer and further.

It’s like remembering something from childhood–I know I used to be able to do it, but the details are fuzzy.

They are becoming more clear now.

I feel much more optimistic about the coaching on Wednesday, and my ability to get through 2 45 min lessons. The last time this coach was here, the work with him triggered a few things falling into place in standard that had been eluding me, and I am hopeful at something similar may be possible this time too. We (and by ‘we’, I mean Boss) have a good plan for things to work on, and if it is even remotely similar to last night, it’s going to be fun.

Fun. There’s a word I haven’t used in relation to dance in a long time. It feels good. Fun.

After last night’s lesson, I expected to wake up sore, especially in the surgical area, and completely tired and drained today from so much effort last night.

In another surprise, I woke up with tons of energy after sleeping better than I have in quite some time, and while I am moderately sore in the muscles I haven’t used in a long time, my belly and abdomen feel the same as they did before the lesson yesterday.

I am sooooo pleased to not have adverse after-effects! (I was pretty worried).

I expect my upper back, shoulder and leg muscles will be a little more sore tomorrow, but nothing unusual.

As a bonus to all of this, my doctor and I decided this morning to stop the anti-depressants, and see how it goes. The last 3 days I have been feeling symptoms of being over medicated again, and since I am on the lowest dose now, the next step is to stop and see how I feel in 2 weeks once my system has adjusted.  I can always go back if I need them. It’s the last of the medications I had to take to counter-act side effects of the hormone therapy.

In fact, I am now officially back to taking only the medications I was taking before I was diagnosed (actually one less, since one was a hormone supplement), one for insomnia, one for allergies. It’s another way to feel free.

Something else I haven’t mentioned which may be contributing to the increase in energy I am having–since the surgery I have lost 10 of the 40 lbs I gained during treatment, with only small diet changes on my part. Finally, it seems my body is ready to get fit again. It’s something I will need to stay on top of, but it’s the first real weight progress I have seen in over a year, and I finally feel motivated again to keep focusing on it.

In a lot of ways, my life is finally starting to resemble what it was pre-cancer, and I hope the momentum I now have continues to keep me moving forward. I am back to work next week, and looking forward to it. I have almost finished the 5th course for my masters.

And now I feel like I am ready and capable of getting back to fully dancing again.

Even more, I feel like I can really hope again.

It’s been a long time coming.

A plan coming together

Monday seems such a long way off.

On Monday I see the surgeon and should get my clearance to return to activities, including dance. The following week I return to work half days.

Since I have an idea of when I will be returning to dance, I was able to sit down with Boss and put together some thoughts for competing, and how to get back into training.

Among other things, we decided on a competition goal–that is just over 9 weeks away. 9 weeks of working to prepare for a competition that is nearby, but still requires a plane ride. Before that, I may do a solo at a local comp, but I haven’t quite decided on that yet.

We also took a look into the new year, and right now we are looking to attend a bigger competition in the US in the spring. After that, plans are in the works for a unique opportunity, but more on that later.

Even though it is really in the short-term, I am relieved to have a competition goal to work towards. I suddenly feel like I have focus for dance again and I am eager to get started.

We have a plan for the first few lessons to get an idea of how things feel and where I am at.

For myself, my goal is to start with the regular 3 lessons a week, and when things feel good and stable then work to add practices and eventually group classes from there. When I can handle 3 lessons and work, then I will add some more activity. As eager as I am to get working, I am not eager to move too fast and end up injured.

I am finding I have a renewed motivation towards dance. Even though I will have one more surgery in October (after the comp), finally there is really nothing looming on the horizon for me.  I can get back to moving through things as I want to without medical interference.

Among other things, I finally found the word that has been eluding me for about 6 months. The word is ‘effort’. It may seem strange, but through my illness I have gotten use to reducing the effort I put into lessons and practices in order to conserve energy. It’s made me cautious, and it has also limited my endurance and conditioning because I never really push myself.

I have realized that I don’t want to play in this ‘safe’ zone anymore and want to get back to pushing my way through everything I do with my full effort. I really hope I will be able to translate that back into dance. I feel like I have allowed myself to get lazy, and it doesn’t sit well with me.

I think the challenge of competing in only 9 weeks is exactly what I need to help remotivate me. Outside of dance, there is renewed energy in a few different areas of my life as all is connected.

I have different ideas for things I want to do and how I want to approach practice and preparation over the next few weeks. I only hope that Boss will also be on board.

Slowly the plan is coming together.

Why compete?

Why, indeed.

After sorting through thoughts in my last post, I guess I realized I need to figure out what drives me to compete, or rather what makes a competition interesting or worth competing in.

• Competitions give me a real and tangible goal within a set time period.

I am a very goal-oriented person and having a competition to prepare for gives me something to focus on and a specific time within which to do it.  I need that to feel grounded in my dancing.  It’s not about specific goals within my dancing, but giving something to aim for.

• Competitions set time frames for measuring progress.

It’s not really about how much progress is made between competitions, but more about having a definitive time to evaluate. It’s an opportunity to record my dancing under pressure and to compare it with previous videos.

• Competitions help me feel structured in my dancing.

Along with being goal-oriented, I need structure, and really don’t do well if I feel there is no rhyme or reason to what I am doing. Competing gives me that structure–there are levels, others to compare to, things to evaluate.

• The impact of a competition should reflect the price.

It doesn’t make sense to spend a large amount to attend a small competition, where I may be alone on the floor. It also doesn’t make sense to spend a small amount to attend a large competition that I have to travel to. The two parts need to balance and sometimes this can be the trickiest part. There are never any guarantees.

• It’s not a competition if I am alone.

In order to compete, there needs to be someone to compete against. There is competitiveness in my nature, although its not always evident and I can say I am not comfortable with it. While I see the value in comparing my dancing against what I did at previous events, there is an element to competing with others on the floor that increases the drive to do well. It’s motivating.

• Competitions motivate me.

There is something about competing that motivates and drives me more than just performing or social dancing. There is a thrill to it, and in many ways it is the time I feel comfortable acknowledging that I have done something well. It’s when I allow myself to really give myself credit, but it also gives an external justification too. It’s someone who doesn’t see me dancing all the time giving approval (or sometimes signalling problems).

• Competing is the reward I give myself for hard work.

While I have lots of personal reasons for wanting to work hard, wanting to do well at a competition also plays a part. Competitions are something I earn. I work hard to save the money to attend, so I also owe it to myself to work hard to prepare for them. Competitions are an opportunity to have fun after putting in the hard work to prepare. Because I know I have worked hard, when I go to compete I can just enjoy the full experience, including traveling, the showcases/performances, and knowing I have done well.

Looking at this list, I can see where most of my recent competitions, and even my preparation for them have missed the mark for me. I also see that one of the things I experienced the most in the past 6 months was preparing for my silver test, which is very telling. Once my last competition was over, I felt very lost and aimless until the test prep started.

Part of me is scared about returning to dance without having decided on a competition goal. I am worried that for one reason or another, my next competition will be once again one of the same local competitions I have been doing for the last 2.5 years.

I am very worried deep down that if I can’t settle on some goals, especially for competing, I will lose the motivation I have gained following the surgery, and I will start to question why I dance–a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down again.

I feel like I lost some of the reasons why I dance in recent months, really since my mastectomies and reconstruction and all the issues with the hormone therapy. I got stagnant and I want to break that cycle. More than that, I need to break that cycle. I feel like I call myself a competitive dancer, but I have no right to since I never really compete.

I feel like I am pretending. Perhaps that is the root of the problem.

It’s time to get back on a full competition floor.

Trying to catch the thoughts

Have you ever felt like there were a bunch of related thoughts swirling around your head but you couldn’t just quite get them to all come together?

That’s a bit like what I feel right now and I’m hoping that by writing it out a little bit I might be able to figure out some of the directions that my mind is wanting to go in.

I still continue to do well with recovering, but as my recovery continues I find I’m turning towards the future and getting back to the activities that I enjoy and that includes dance.

I find myself thinking about dance a lot these days probably mostly because I am unable to do it. What is on my mind the most is how my return to dance will look like, what steps I will have to take to get back. But the bigger question seems to be not do I want to go back, but how do I want to go back. What is it that will motivate me? That’s the question that seems to be forefront of my mind right now.

I was in a pretty sorry place before the surgery although I was trying to ignore that, it’s certainly had an effect on how I was dancing at the time. I wanted to wait until after surgery to begin to deal with it.

I am having a hard time because I am not sure how I want to return to competing. There are days when I’m not sure that I want to compete. But those are also the same days that I know I need to compete.

I feel indifferent to competing right now. Somewhere in the last 3 years of treatments and recoveries, my focus, drive, and motivation for competing has changed. It’s left me feeling like I haven’t done a real competition since 2014.

It concerns me because it affects the mind-set with which I am trying to determine when and where to compete.

The last few comps I have done I felt indifferent about the results. Even hearing Boss talk about how I did at the last comp in January never excited or motivated me.

Somewhere, while I was sick, I lost the fire and drive that kept me focused on my competitive goals. The inner strength that pushed me through the preparation. The sense of satisfaction I used to feel at the end of every lesson knowing that I had put everything I had into every movement to reach my limit every lesson.

Confession time. It’s been a long time since I have felt fulfilled and satisfied with my performance in a lesson.

Very few of my lessons in the past 6 months have sparked interest from me. I do what I need to in order to go through the motions, but nothing is driving me. I can’t seem to figure out or nail down the goal I have been working on. So I gave up trying.

The worse thing is that when I look at the recordings of the gold routines we made, I can see quite obviously that I am just going through the steps. I am not dancing and I am not trying to.

I don’t know if I really remember what it felt like to put 110% into every step all the time any more. But I want to get back to doing that, instead of working through the budgeting of energy I have developed such a strong habit of doing.

I want to feel myself get strong again and I want to return to dance knowing there is a clear reasonable and practicable competition goal to prepare for. Not one “just to get on the floor”, but one I can feel motivated and driven to prepare for.

I just don’t know that such a comp exists right now.

One of my biggest fears in looking at returning to dance is that it will be the same as before–no real focus or goal for motivation. That it will still be stagnant and I will be bored with it no matter how hard I try not to be.

I don’t know where to start, but waiting to start is the hardest thing I am facing right now.

I miss dance, but I fear I miss the ghost of what my dancing was before I got sick.

I don’t know what direction to go, but I know I need to figure out how to get the fire and passion back in my dance, not to mention the drive and motivation that comes from having a goal to work towards.

I am afraid I will end up in a circle of never committing to competitions because I feel I will be disappointed by the experience of them before I go.

I have had perhaps too many ‘meh’  competitions in my recent past due to health. Too many comps attended I didn’t really want to attend. Too many comps I was unable to get excited about. Too many comps I didn’t feel challenged to prepare for.

I want to get out of this rut. I want to set a comp goal and focus on it. Focus the preparation for it. Know I won’t be alone on the floor and that I will have a chance of placing well because I worked hard to do so. Get a real idea of where I am at.

But sometimes wishes are only wishes and dreams depend too much on the will of others.

Sometimes it’s better to keep thoughts swirling to yourself.

Then you don’t risk disappointing others.

Moving Along

Slowly–but I am moving.

I had my first follow-up with the surgeon this week.  She is pleased with how things are going, and gave me permission to start ‘slow walks’.  I haven’t quite gotten out yet due to the heat but it’s on my ‘to do’ list for the weekend.

She also told me that the pathology on everything they removed was completely benign with no traces of cancer or pre-cancerous tissue.  She also told me that they did find a non-cancer related issue in my uterus, with a long name I don’t remember, that would have caused problems later in life. That in itself make me happier with the decision to remove everything.

The only questionable issue is a wound that is healing slowly, but it is still healing and not infected, so its just a matter of time.

I am trying not to go stir crazy.  I have crocheted two afghans, and completed a 3-d puzzle.  I have also finished all the readings for the current course in my masters and only have the assignments left to do. I am now working on a 3rd afghan and a new puzzle.

The biggest thing I am struggling with right now is missing dance a lot.  Dance is my stress relief and physical outlet, so without it,  I have been feeling restless.  That said, because things have been going so well without the hormone therapy, my doctor has me trying a reduced dose of the anti-depressant to see how it goes.  I have been feeling some side effects that indicate I may not need the medication, but we will see how it goes.

I see the surgeon again in a few weeks and then we will discuss the return to activity including dance and work.  I am not sure how I feel about that yet, but given I am still doing a lot of healing and need regular anti-inflammatories (at least not narcotics anymore!), that is not surprising.  I am sure it will come with time.  My pain levels are definitely reduced but it does still come and go quite a bit.

I won’t be restarting the hormone therapy until at least mid-October.

All this to say there is definite progress and I hope once I start going on concentrated walks it will continue.

The sooner I get back to dance the better 🙂

I Have to Give Up

Beautiful post by the amazing Girl With The Tree Tattoo! If you haven’t already, you should check out her blog!