babying vs caring?
So I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I broke a toe about a week and a half ago. Stress fracture, not a traumatic break (and this will become an important point later on). First bone I've ever broken - which is probably surprising, considering all the dancing I've done, but that's neither here nor there. When I'm home, I'm living on my couch - got my laptop out here on a chair and the modem on the floor, with rather silly amounts of books and knitting projects and such scattered around. ;) Had to work quite a bit last week - did a 24 on Thursday, which resulted in much pain and visibly increased swelling and bruising on Friday. Got called in again on Saturday, and after 8 hours I passed that shift off. It's been *much* more painful this week. I ascribe that to the fact that the "shock" has worn off and the pain is fully registering now, the soft tissue trauma/healing is really starting to come through (always much more interesting than bone damage, bones are much simpler cellular constructions), and also I'm at the point when most of what I normally do to myself would have healed already - so it's getting harder to remember to keep taking my anti-inflammatory and arnica and all.
Various people have asked me why I'm not back dancing yet. What I keep getting told is "well, dancers just tape it to the toe next to it and keep going!". Couple of relevant factors here, though. For one thing, a large part of what I'm working on now internally is finding the boundary between pushing myself enough to not just let myself wimp out when I need to push on vs when to stop because I'm going to damage myself in some way. And this is where the *type* of break becomes relevant. Yes, I have lost 40 lbs. I'm still carrying 90 extra. That's a lot of extra weight on the bones and joints when doing weight-bearing exercise, like dance. And this was a stress fracture. Stress fractures are funny - they are caused by doing too much weight-bearing exercise. But the only prevention is to do weight-bearing exercise. Some makes your bones stronger, too much causes stress fractures. And the heavier you are, the easier it is to get stress fractures. So given the weight I'm still carrying, it seems to me that I really "should" give it the full 4 weeks (which is the minimum healing time listed for stress fractures in toes) before I go back to my insanely intense weight-bearing dance class. But of course, when people *say* things like that, it triggers my "competitive" nature, if you will, the one that says "oh, you think I should start again now? well, I'll start again YESTERDAY!". Which makes it hard to think logically. But the fact is that I probably ought to even think about modifying the amount of what I'm doing, on top of giving a full 4 weeks healing time. (especially so considering that I have no insurance and no money - I got lucky, the bone is *not* displaced, and it *is healing nicely - but I absolutely cannot risk re-breaking it and displacing the bone or otherwise causing serious injury)
It's extremely hard for me to not be dancing. Quite frankly, I tend to start crying when class time rolls around and I can't go in. I love my classes, I love my teachers, it's doing wonders for my physical state *and* my emotional state - but between how much I really cannot risk causing serious damage and the fact that it is a stress fracture, with all that that implies, I really think I need to be smart and hold off. My Monday night class had to get rescheduled next week, and I've heard it's on the following Saturday now, which would be just over 3 weeks after the initial break - I'll probably try to go back then, but just for warm-ups and conditioning, nothing that will require much pointing of toes or standing on toes - still minimizing the trauma. And that's just the first hour of a 2 hour class. Trying to play it smart. Just wow, I'm more frustrated over that comment than I realized I was (especially since it came from someone at the studio)...
Various people have asked me why I'm not back dancing yet. What I keep getting told is "well, dancers just tape it to the toe next to it and keep going!". Couple of relevant factors here, though. For one thing, a large part of what I'm working on now internally is finding the boundary between pushing myself enough to not just let myself wimp out when I need to push on vs when to stop because I'm going to damage myself in some way. And this is where the *type* of break becomes relevant. Yes, I have lost 40 lbs. I'm still carrying 90 extra. That's a lot of extra weight on the bones and joints when doing weight-bearing exercise, like dance. And this was a stress fracture. Stress fractures are funny - they are caused by doing too much weight-bearing exercise. But the only prevention is to do weight-bearing exercise. Some makes your bones stronger, too much causes stress fractures. And the heavier you are, the easier it is to get stress fractures. So given the weight I'm still carrying, it seems to me that I really "should" give it the full 4 weeks (which is the minimum healing time listed for stress fractures in toes) before I go back to my insanely intense weight-bearing dance class. But of course, when people *say* things like that, it triggers my "competitive" nature, if you will, the one that says "oh, you think I should start again now? well, I'll start again YESTERDAY!". Which makes it hard to think logically. But the fact is that I probably ought to even think about modifying the amount of what I'm doing, on top of giving a full 4 weeks healing time. (especially so considering that I have no insurance and no money - I got lucky, the bone is *not* displaced, and it *is healing nicely - but I absolutely cannot risk re-breaking it and displacing the bone or otherwise causing serious injury)
It's extremely hard for me to not be dancing. Quite frankly, I tend to start crying when class time rolls around and I can't go in. I love my classes, I love my teachers, it's doing wonders for my physical state *and* my emotional state - but between how much I really cannot risk causing serious damage and the fact that it is a stress fracture, with all that that implies, I really think I need to be smart and hold off. My Monday night class had to get rescheduled next week, and I've heard it's on the following Saturday now, which would be just over 3 weeks after the initial break - I'll probably try to go back then, but just for warm-ups and conditioning, nothing that will require much pointing of toes or standing on toes - still minimizing the trauma. And that's just the first hour of a 2 hour class. Trying to play it smart. Just wow, I'm more frustrated over that comment than I realized I was (especially since it came from someone at the studio)...