Surgery Update, part 3

I am now done and graduated from physical therapy. My next doctor appointment is a month away. I am a regular participant in everything at dance class, even leading a fitness class during our Oireachtas prep Saturdays.

Did I really heal this fast?

Three months seriously flew by! Maybe I just feel that way because the past month has been a blur with the beginning of the school year and my own insistence that I never have days off to do nothing.

For the most part this past month, when I wasn't working, I was doing something to improve my physical fitness. I was at physical therapy getting essentially an hour and a half personal training session. I was running (yes, running!) in the fitness center on the treadmill. I was choreographing a show treble reel for the Baltimore Comic Con.

So, yes, I finally got to attend a comic con in my Captain America dress! I entered a costume contest for fun, and danced on stage for a bit of an audience. They went wild! My costume was totally a hit, and I loved getting all the comments on how cool an Irish dancing Captain America is. Now, I'm going to dedicate a whole post to this outing very soon, but until then, have a picture!

I have officially registered for two feiseanna this fall before the Oireachtas. I will be doing only the set dance competition at Rhythm of Ireland to try out my new Downfall of Paris without the stress of having to push myself to have the other rounds ready (namely slip jig). Hopefully all goes well, and if not, there's still time to perfect it before the SRO (and if not, there's the ol' standby Planxty Drury). My one and only three round competition will be Feis Culkin a few weeks after.

And now for something completely not related to healing... Remember when I mentioned I won an instagram contest hosted by Marvel and Dr. Pepper that was run during San Diego Comic Con? My prize came in the mail last month. I was expecting five Dr. Pepper cans, which I got. What completely blew my mind was that they came in a fantastic case signed by the Avengers: Age of Ultron cast! Consider me blown away.

Goals: Stamina all around
Days till Os: 66

Surgery Update, part 2

When I last posted, I was just about to start physical therapy.  Now, I am a little over two months out from surgery, and I have come so far since then!

My first week of PT was tough.  I was weaning myself off crutches that week, as well as learning that PT after surgery is apparently more painful than PT after healing from an injury.  I had barely any movement when I first started, in my third week out from surgery.  Now, I am through my initial six weeks of PT, and set to do four more weeks.

I was one hundred percent off crutches my fourth week after surgery.  That was the week that I also received a wonderful shirt made by my dance buddies.  They were making shirts for nationals, and wanted to make sure I was included too!  It was a nice surprise, and nearly made me tear up with all their kind get-well messages.

Six weeks out from surgery was one of my most exciting weeks yet.  I was finally able to give the boot the boot!  I spent the week relishing in the feeling of wearing two shoes again as I went on a vacation to Ann Arbor, Michigan with my mom and one of my sisters.  I spent a lot of time walking around the Michigan campus, and the general downtown area, all the time (mostly) happy that I had shoes that matched.

I have probably a week or two before I can slowly start into dancing again, but I already have my back to dance outfit chosen!  I found the shirt at TJ Maxx and couldn't in good faith as an Irish dancer, pass it up.  The shoes are my I Can Wear Two Shoes Again present to myself.  They're Nike Free shoes, and I know they will be invaluable as I ease back into dancing, especially during long ceili practices.

It may be a month or so until my next post here, so fear not in my silence! Work will be starting up next week, and I expect it will take a few weeks to settle into my schedule after all the Back-to-School-Nights, physical therapy, beginning of fall dance classes, and weekend excursions planned.

Goals: Keep up my PT exercises

Days till Os: 108

Surgery Update, part 1

As you all possibly know, I had my ankle surgery on June 18th to clean up scar tissue and tighten up some lateral ankle ligaments (with the Bröstrom procedure).  My podiatrist deemed it a success!  It has now officially been three weeks since surgery, and look how my ankle is healing!  Even through the really messy pictures from 1-2 weeks after my surgery, my podiatrist said ,"Looking good."

Weeks 1-3

The first week after my surgery was the most difficult, as I was the most "helpless."  I got to stay at my parents' house since they have less stairs, and someone there to take care of me at all times of the day.  I spent a lot of time on the couch, mainly watching soccer and napping while listening to audio books.  I also celebrated turning a quarter of a century with a Captain America themed party (of course).

The second week after my surgery, I moved back to my apartment.  In the latter part of the week, I was able to get rid of the splint, and go into the boot with partial weight bearing on my ankle--one week ahead of schedule!  Having a removable boot made it possible for me to spend time at the pool now, in supplement to spending time on the couch, this time watching Orange is the New Black.

This third week after surgery was spent voraciously keeping up with information from the North American Irish Dance Championships.  QuickFeis was very helpful this year!  I also got to participate in the lighting of fireworks!

I went back to the podiatrist this past Monday, and while I'm still in the boot, my goal for this week is to wean myself off crutches (still ahead of schedule!), and start physical therapy (I go tomorrow).

From the last day of June onwards, I have also been completing a daily workout routine (modified of course because of my injury), and I promise to share more about that with you in my next blog post!

Goal: Get rid of the crutches
Days till Os:150

Mini Update

Injury recovery

• I have finished my first round of physical therapy!  Already, my ankle is nearly back to full strength and flexibility.
• I began my second round of physical therapy three weeks ago and will finish the day before I leave for New Orleans.  This was recommended for extra strength since I'm still not 100% back with my dancing abilities.
• At my recent visit to my podiatrist, he said that everything was healing nice and tight like it should. 
• My dancing is improving on the daily.  As of Monday, my slip jig is finally feeling back to it's pre-injury self, I even added an over back into my lead!  My hard shoe focus is mainly getting my stamina back up.
• Fun fact: I use a roll and a half of athletic tape each day I dance to tape up both ankles for injury prevention and maintenance.  I own a case of athletic tape for this reason, and I will probably be halfway through this box by Oireachtas.

Oireachtas news

• My confirmed dances for the big day: solos (senior ladies), mixed four-hand, ladies eight-hand, and figure choreography.  It promises to be a long day since the southern region so lovingly puts all the senior solos and all teams on the same day.
• I designed the shirts you'll see my dance school wearing at this years Oireachtas.  I won't give any sneak previews, though.  You'll have to wait till the SRO to see them, but let me say, we will stand out.
• We recently were on a two week break with dance classes, and while it doesn't fall at the most opportune time, I was able to fit in small drilling sessions at home, which have had varying degrees of success.  Less success after Sandy hit and I got behind in job things.

Other dance things

• October has passed, and with it my five year dance-iversary!  Happy five years of dancing to me.
• This past weekend was Feis Culkin, which I chose not dance in.  I decided to save my ankles from intense competition until my Oireachtas marathon day.  Regardless, I did have nightmares the night before the feis about showing up late to dance even though I wasn't registered.
• Check out these pants.  Just look at how perfectly they match my solo.  Plan on me wearing them at the Oireachtas.

• Also in my Oireachtas fashion suitcase: this Captain America shirt to rock on the day that I'm dancing so I can be the Star Spangled Girl with the Curls.  I still have to do some tailoring for easy over the wig removal...

Goals: Stamina/sharpen steps

Days till Os: 25

The Star Spangled Girl with the Curls.

I am drawing a lot of inspiration from Captain America at the moment.  He is my superhero role model.  This is partly because Chris Evans is ohmygosh gorgeous and Avengers is my favorite movie.  Besides that, here's why:

I am a pre-serum Steve Rogers.  My leg is scrawny from all the time spent immobilized in my boot.  I have ankle issues.  My strength is not the best.  But will I give up?  No.  Steve didn't back down from bullies, so I'm not going to give up on this Oireachtas dream.

Steve was approached by Dr. Erksine and agreed to undergo the transformation to a super solider.  Lucky for him, he had a whole team of scientists there to assist the transformation, including Howard Stark.  All he did was show up, jump in a machine, and bam, super solider.  I on the other hand will be undergoing my transformation with my own will power and help from my humble little team of my TCRG, my podiatrist, and my physical therapist.

Captain America is a peak physical and mental condition, an aspect I'm striving for in my own dancing.  He is hard-working, loyal, and noble.  He is the best of the best in the Marvel universe.  Plus, Captain America's personality is just so intrinsically good, how can he not be a good role model for everything aspect of life?

All I need is a portable plushie Cap toy to keep in my dance bag and remind me to be the best of the best.

And also, how cool would this be as a solo dress?!

Goals: Treble jig stamina
Days till Os: 53

Mini Update

Injury recovery

• I officially got rid of my boot this past Tuesday!
• Round one of physical therapy began three weeks ago, and already there is a huge difference in the strength and flexibility of my ankle.  My PT likes to joke with me that he's not needed, being I just went through with all of these exercises less than five months ago... I told him I just need him for his machines and massages.  Also, he's giving me exercises to strengthen other parts of my leg and my core, which are useful.

Dance tidbits

• Figure choreography practice is in full swing, and I can make it through dancing the figure!
• This week, I will be going back to doing solo classes as well.  It's an experiment, since I need to do some soft shoe re-choreographing to compensate for injured ankles.
• I will be dancing solos and teams at the Oireachtas.  I'm very excited and know that this year's journey will be appreciated 100% after the long string of injuries.
• I began taking a weekly class at a local dance center that combines ballet barre work, yoga, and pilates.  I'm only in my second week of class, but already I feel stronger, but that's probably stemming from being sedentary since July.

Life tidbits

• My first month of being a teacher is over!  Almost everything is getting easier since I'm settling into my schedule and routines.  The children are mostly adorable.  Except when they're misbehaving.
• My first paycheck is roughly the price of a new Gavin.  I can't complain, this is more than I've ever made in my life.

Injured: The happy ending

I went to my very last doctor's visit yesterday morning.  The funny part about this appointment was that I spent more time waiting around than him actually visiting me.  He came into the room, looked over the note from my physical therapist, and asked if I hurt and what I was doing.  After assessing all this, he said I didn't have to see him again, but to still take it easy if my ankle hurt (I did tear three ligaments after all).

Today, I graduate from physical therapy.

Because of all this wonderful news, I decided to register for the Nation's Capital feis next month.  I am feeling extra motivated right now, especially after attending Old Dominion feis to run stages.  Being there without dancing was bittersweet: I know I would not have done all that well since I began easing into dance a month ago, but being there all day had me really itching to put my solo dress on...

Last night was my first hardcore practice since my time easing back into dance last month.  Inspired by being cleared by my doctor and by the feis this weekend, I decided to run through all three rounds, including the new slip jig steps I tweaked.  In honor of this practice, I wore a new Pinterest and Feisonista-inspired outfit, which came in especially handy in my lack-of-circulating-air practice area.

I am lucky to have a practice area that I can use at essentially any time.  It's a racquetball court, so the downsides are no mirrors and it's extremely loud, but the floor is nice and it's spacious.  I am very much lacking in stamina and general leg strength due to being out for so long, but I am planning on practicing in my space two or more times a week until the feis.  Have a video montage of last night's practice session, including all my wonderful brain farts:

Goals: Stamina and cross
Days till Os: 163

Irish Dance How-to: Poodle sock hot/ice pack

This month's first Irish dance how-to is still going along the theme of upcyclying old poodle socks.  This tutorial is a little harder than April's, and the tutorial being released at the end of the month is the hardest of the three poodle sock tutorials.

Tips:

• Use older and slightly stretched out poodle socks.  Your hot/ice pack will be bigger.
• Don't start sewing in the corner like I did.  It makes it harder to sew up after you flip the hot/ice pack right-side out.  It is easier if you start in the middle of one of the longer sides
• Leave more room than you think open so you don't have to struggle to flip the hot/ice pack right-side out after machine sewing!
• A funnel would be helpful for putting the rice into your hot/ice pack
• For a cold pack: leave it in the freezer overnight
• For a heat pack: microwave in 30 second intervals until warm

Stay tuned for the last of the poodle sock upcycles, being released June 27th!

Mini update

Injury recovery

• May 16th was a big day for me.  After 98 days of injury recovery, I went to dance class, put on my hard shoes, and danced.  I can only do hard shoe dances at the moment due to not being able to jump/land on my bad foot without it hurting, but at least I can dance!
• I am still going to physical therapy, and am halfway through my second round of six weeks.  I will go back to the podiatrist at the end of June and hopefully he will graduate me from PT!

CCE Feis

• I kicked off the summer feising season by going to cheer on and watch my fellow 18&O champ dancers.  Congrats to them, and good luck as they continue preparing for nationals!
• In honor of being able to dance again, I also purchased some killer red ghillies to match my dress for award ceremonies and other fun things.

Old Dominion Feis

• This is my dance school's feis, so you can guarantee I will be there helping in one way or another.  (When I know what I'll be doing, I'll post it here so you can come say hi!)
• Old Dominion Feis also marks the start of my fifth year of feising!

Irish Dance How-tos:

• I did not do one for May.  I confess, my schedule is uber busy teaching full time.  Do not despair because there will be two in the month of June!  I am planning to have the first up on my blog and ready for you on June 6th.

Other things

• Curious as to what is my dance bag? (Come on, I know you secretly are.)  Check out Moira's blog, On My Toes to see a little collaboration post I did there!  Also, check out her latest post on joining the 'Mad Abs June' challenge!
• I'm going to go see Riverdance at Wolftrap on June 17th!
• If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed I changed the banner at the top of my blog just for fun.  What do you think?
• My school year is done June 15th.  Bear with me for minimal posts two more weeks as I finish teaching.  I'm already getting geared up with blog post ideas for this summer!
• On May 18th, I attended my own graduation ceremony since my college doesn't hold one in December.  Despite receiving my diploma in the mail in February, my graduation is officially official now!

Goals: PT exercises and stamina
Days till Os: 181

Mini update

Injury recovery:

• Last Wednesday, I started physical therapy.  Today was my fourth visit, and already there is improvement in my range of motion!  Most of my appointments have so far focused on getting rid of scar tissue by having an ankle ultra sound and massages which hurt like a bear.  I do have a small arsenal of exercises to build strength back up in my various foot muscles.
• I go into the podiatrist again tomorrow, hopefully to get rid of my boot forevermore!  In celebration of this, I have purchased a special pair of "I get to wear two shoes again" shoes.

Worlds:

• The dance world has now entered into a post-worlds lull.  Surprisingly, there is a huge sense of loss for me because I was spending all of last week checking up on results from the moment I woke up.  At least there are pictures still being uploaded to FeisPix, and Feisonista's style reports to keep looking forward to!
• A huge congrats to fellow Maple dancers Colin B. and Miya S. on your recalls and placements!
• I have probably watched this worlds dance drama about five times now, so I thought I'd share it with you!  I don't know what dance school it is, or what place they got.  I hope they won because it's fantastic.

Other things:

• I start my long-term subbing job tomorrow.  I will be teaching music at an elementary school!  I hope to still keep updating my blog at least once a week, but bear with me if I skip a week...
• Remember to enter my giveaway!  Entries are due this Friday evening!

Goals: do PT exercises every day

Days till Os: 233

Mini Update

Things I was doing before I was injured:

• The week after the Oireachtas I learned all my new steps for the year.  Senior ladies are dancing slip jig and treble jig, so I have both those dances, as well as my new set for the year, Kilkenny Races.
• As I was learning my new set, I thought it would be completely impossible because there are a lot of new rhythmic things I either had not done till that point, or needed some work.  After about a month, I had the whole thing finally learned and could perform without stopping to think.  There were still parts that needed lots of work (like the left foot of the step), but I could get all the way through!
• I was in generally getting geared up for nationals in continuing to work on turn out and my overall dancing.

I went to the doctor this past Tuesday.  My ankle is beginning to heal up, and I can begin to walk with crutches and test out walking with only my boot.  I go in again this Tuesday coming up hopefully to get rid of the crutches and to get my orders to start physical therapy

St. Patrick's month is upon us already.  Although I won't be dancing, I do plan on attending what I can to support my fellow dancers and dance school.  I will post my full schedule at a later date, but look for me in the D.C. St. Pat's parade!

Since I can't dance quite yet, I'm taking the Mad Abs March challenge!  This is mostly a personal thing, since the February one failed around the time I hurt myself and couldn't catch up with what I missed.  Feel free to print it out and complete it yourself!

I attended my first pub session this past Monday night at Ireland's Four Provinces in Falls Church, VA.  While I did not dance, I did sing one song (I only really know one Irish sing well enough to perform).  I will learn more so I can contribute more!  I mostly enjoyed listening to what the others were doing.

I have started an Irish dance tumblr.  Mostly because there are so many fantastic Irish dance photos out there to share, and I want something more photo-friendly than this wordy blog!

Check out this article by Christy Dorrity for Feis America's online site at Irish Central.

Also, you may see a familiar face in an upcoming issue of IDM!

Goals: keep healing!

Injured

This is the story of how I gave up Irish dancing for Lent.  Don't worry, this will eventually be a very inspiring story because it's actually still a work in progress.  This story is about how I destroyed 60% of my ankle.

Two weeks ago at dance class, everything was normal.  I led the class in the usual warm ups.  We did our normal drills across the floor.  It only took one second for it all to change.  I decided to try for some extra height on my plushenko because hey, that's what drills are for.  I prepped, I jumped, I spun, and then something went wrong.  I came down from the jump, landing on the side of my foot.  I immediately felt things popping and contorting.  The pain was immediate.  As I hobbled to the side of the dance floor, all I could concentrate on was not crying. I sat down and was given ice, all the while fighting immense pain.  With a small crisis taken care of, dance class continued as normal.  As the ice and Advil I had taken began numbing the pain, I knew I should leave dance class and begin the trek to my car and eventually home.  Standing up to leave, that's when the tears I was doing my best not to shed came.  One of the guy dancers assured me that this is probably the best time for this sort of thing to happen anyways--I'm not preparing for worlds.  There are no competitions coming up for me.  I will heal.

One hour

The next day I went in to the podiatrist.  It was immediately clear to him that I did something horribly wrong, and luckily he didn't want to manipulate it and poke at it too much.  I then had x-rays to look for broken bones.  In truth, I wanted a broken bone.  Once they heal, you are golden with only a little physical therapy to strengthen it back up.  Tissue damage takes longer to heal, and if it heals wrong, surgery is involved. Nothing really showed up on my x-ray, other than a healing stress fracture in my first metatarsal (which I didn't know about).  I was then told to get an MRI.

Six days.

My MRI was scheduled for Monday morning, the results were sent to my podiatrist, which bring us to Tuesday afternoon.  He walked in the exam room and said, "You did a good job on your ankle."  Unfortunately, there was no fracture.  No, instead, I tore three ligaments, one completely, and two others only partially, effectively damaging 60% of the ligaments that hold my foot onto my leg.  It was then that I asked the vital question here: will I dance again?  My podiatrist then asked if I was going after a professional career, and I said no, just trying to qualify for the world championships in the spring of 2013.  The good news is that yes I will dance again and that I need to put his name somewhere on my list of sponsors (joking)!  The bad news is that it will be a few months after lots of PT and hoping my ligaments don't heal too loosely (surgery would be needed), and hoping that I don't get tendinitis.  I was put in a boot and told to come back in three weeks.  Maybe then I'll be off my crutches...

Now, two weeks after the fact, I am about to go in to dance class for a short bit this evening to let everyone know what happened.  Can't wait to see their faces when I tell them what really happened after I so calmly handled (I thought) doing this damage.  Hopefully I will be able to help out with various St. Patrick's day activities since I won't be dancing!

Goals: Heal up!