2013 Year In Review

This year brought a lot of major life changes and new beginnings for me. Mostly positive ones. I moved to a new home in a different location and am now (finally!) comfortably settled in here. I am living within walking distance to a major doctor's office, lab and my physical therapy clinic. I'm also extremely close to groceries, gas and restaurants. The convenience of not having to drive everywhere has simplified my life a great deal. The appointment running has calmed down a bit too with the exception of physical therapy and dentistry that is. The dental work I've had done and am still having done has tried ever fiber of my being this past year. I only have seven more fillings and five more crowns to go before I am completely cavity-free. I have had a grand total of three root canals, one crown and three fillings done this year. The physical, emotional and financial stress of dental work is enough to drive anyone clinically insane. I realize I have to keep plugging away at fixing my teeth to avoid future root canals and extractions, as those are not an option for me.

My physical therapy appointments though tough, are also rewarding. I don't look at physical therapy as just another appointment, I view it as an integral part of my weekly routine. I am already seeing results in the strength department. Luckily I build muscle pretty quickly which is helping to stabilize my ankle along with the rest of my wobbly body. I am lucky to live right next door to such a great physical therapy clinic with a therapist who also happens to suffer from hypermobility and TMJD herself. Doing physical therapy as a teen saved her from having TMJ surgery and that experience was what led her to the field. I feel optimistic about the progress that I am making and feel myself getting a lot stronger each and everyday. I only go twice a week but have an intense home exercise program that I do daily, sometimes in my living room and sometimes at my apartment complex's on-site gym, which is another nice feature of the new place.

The first month after I moved was fraught with major challenges concerning air quality. I had selected and moved into a ground floor unit, but unfortunately the complex was built on a wetland and as soon as the rains started in my apartment reeked of a strong, sickening mold smell. So much for life in a "luxury" apartment. A home humidity monitor I purchased revealed that the internal humidity reached 75% everyday. A normal internal humidity level is between 30-50%. Anything above 60% provides ideal conditions for mold growth. I fought with the complex to let me move to another unit. An option which was totally feasible considering it was brand new construction and only a quarter of the units were occupied. Their corporate management initially denied my request calling the mold smell a "subjective" complaint since they couldn't pinpoint the exact source of the mold. Upon conducting a bit of careful research and calling the city building inspector it turns out that the problem was much larger than bleach or exhaust fans could have ever fixed. In order to remedy the problem, the building would have had to have been torn down completely. Because apartments are technically classified as commercial space (even though residents inhabit them as their homes,) the city allows them to build on concrete slabs without crawl spaces. They didn't allow the concrete slab to cure long enough in the construction process which resulted in a subsequent sponge-like effect on the foundation every time it rained. Every time it rained that damp moldy smell crept up into my home from the concrete floor, through my carpet and into the living space.

I finally moved into a new apartment in the same complex at the beginning of October after enduring a month of hell in a moldy apartment. I am now living on the second floor of an apartment that doesn't smell of anything other than whatever I have been cooking in the kitchen. My sinuses are much better now and I can actually breathe out of my nose in the mornings again. Something I had wondered if I would ever be able to do again. Although sinus surgery may become an inevitability down the road due to a deviated septum and bone spurring, for now I have dodged a major bullet by avoiding surgery. And I am happy to put it off for as long as possible unless it becomes a necessity. My new apartment feels much healthier and I can breathe easy here which is a huge relief.

I am doing decent in the health department at the moment (aside from a nagging, two-week old mystery upper right quadrant and back pain that landed me in the ER for bloodwork, an abdominal ultrasound and a HIDA scan to no avail and is currently being investigated by my primary care doc). My health is something I do not take for granted at all. For the most part my POTS is controlled and doing much better now that I've removed myself from the moldy environment of the other apartment. Earlier this year I had a scary bout with benign positional vertigo that finally subsided after taking a month round of Augmentin antibiotics for my sinuses. It was a scary time for me. Every time I layed on my right side or flat on my back I would get the spins. This continued for a few months with my doctor telling me it was "just some inner ear virus," and an ENT insisting it was benign positional vertigo spurred by spending too much time in a dental chair as I had a scary incident where some heavy duty dental drilling back in the chair spurred a major attack. Whatever it was, it is no longer happening to me now and I am so thankful. I had a follow-up with a new ENT the other day and luckily they were not able to trigger the vertigo in his office. Because of my history with rotational vertigo during dental work though, he wants me to undergo a more sophisticated test called a VNG early next year to measure eye movements during different positions and then conduct a repositioning procedure in the office to resposition any inner ear crystals that may have become dislodged.

In 2014, I still have plenty of work to do. I would like to make more strides in the health and fitness department with an emphasis on healthier eating. I definitely have some work to do in that department. I am fortunate to have a wonderful boyfriend who enjoys cooking for me, the problem is he enjoys cooking tasty comfort foods without worrying about things like nutritional content or calories. Oh well, I can't complain too much. I know how lucky I am to have someone who cares about me and takes good care of me. I am finally in a healthy relationship, one that I don't have to change myself for. Compared to my verbally abusive ex, this experience has been night and day and I am so thankful.

So to sum it all up, this year has brought some health ups and downs, but overall I'm in a good place health-wise. I'm in a good place location-wise after finally moving into a healthy apartment. And I'm in a great place relationship-wise with someone who loves and respects me. Next year I intend to get my body in peak physical condition and hopefully start to renew old hobbies one by one without destroying my body in the process. For now I will have to say no to ballet but may take up pilates and yoga again in the new year.

On Losing the Ability to do What You Love

"...I was dancing again, every muscle effortlessly engaged, articulating in perfect synchronicity."

About a month ago, one of my best friends sent me an article that brought me to tears. While I'm sure her intention wasn't to make me cry, this article hit way too close to home. She sent it to me because she knew it would resonate within me like it did within her. We had both been dancers in our former pre-POTS lives. More specifically, ballerinas. Living a beautiful life doing what we loved and were perhaps born to do. We were introduced to each other through a mutual friend who also had POTS and recognized that we were destined to be besties. We bonded instantly over our similar past experiences and our current shared love of reality dance TV. While watching Breaking Pointe is no substitute for dancing ourselves, it certainly does help fill the void.

The night before I received the article in my Facebook inbox, I had had a dream that I was dancing again. It was haunting, but not a nightmare. It was a very vivid, beautiful dream that made me feel very much alive and self-actualized in those brief moments I that was dancing again, every muscle effortlessly engaged, articulating in perfect synchronicity. Unlike my current reality, I had complete control over my own body, and it felt good. Exhilarating even. I was in my old ballet class with my former instructor Miss Mary guiding my movements across the floor. Except I was my current self in present day, just in an alternate reality. A reality much more fulfilling than my own.

In my present reality, I am currently in physical therapy for a bum ankle. Or at least what I thought was a bum ankle that to my dismay actually turned out to be two bum ankles and a bum hip. It's no secret that years of ballet takes a toll on one's body. And perhaps even more of a toll when you're hypermobile and repeatedly encouraged by over-zealous instructors to relish in your perfect turn-out. While I haven't danced ballet for several years, apparently I still walk like a duck, my hips stuck in a perpetually turned-out state. My physical therapist also happens to be hypermobile and is good at correcting these issues. She uses pilates as a way to strengthen muscles and thereby control her own hypermobility. I did not realize how bad my ankles had gotten until she said that I need to learn how to walk all over again. Apparently I've been doing it wrong all these years.

As I raised into releve alongside a supportive countertop in physical therapy, I kept having flashbacks to the ballet barre and and all the hours that I had spent there, nearly deforming my own body from three years of age onward, as it was growing and developing into the body I have today. Going to ballet class was as routine as brushing my teeth in the morning. As the years of class went on, all our bodies grew to be the same shape and size, so that we were all nearly identical and could all wear the same size costume if need be. There was certainly not much physical diversity in ballet. Most of us were naturally hypermobile to some degree. If you weren't, you simply couldn't compete in the ballet world. Or, you had to work very, very hard at it. Those are the type of dancers I respect the most. The ones who have to work at it. Now that I'm aware of my hypermobility, I realize I possessed an unfair advantage in the ballet world.

I have been asked the following question several times by friends and family: if you could go back in time knowing what you know now, would you have still danced ballet? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Although it may have caused irreparable damage to my body, I was simply meant to do it. And there has always been a void since I stopped dancing. I consider myself a generally happy person, but there's always been something missing. And I know precisely what that something is.

Ballet was my outlet, my escape, my passion. It helped quell the obsessive compulsive tendencies I had hidden as a child. It also came so naturally, more naturally than sports or other athletic pursuits. I didn't have to work at it. It was effortless. The rest of my life has certainly not been effortless by comparison. Physical therapy is hard work. I am developing a new awareness of my body, and an appreciation for what I put it through. I am trying hard to correct bad habits that ballet helped me acquire over the years and push through the pain. I carry with me everyday now the physical reminders of having once been able to do what I loved. And to me, it's all been worth it. If I could still dance ballet today, I absolutely would.