As my blog, Boston Bound, chronicles, I put my knee out in June of last year. The injury, which occurred by me merely stepping to the side, happened after almost 2 weeks of me teaching full-time at the CVCB Summer Intensive (which I also directed in 2017 and 2018). Last year, all leading up to it, I kept getting the feeling that I should physically prepare - work out - so that my body could meet the increased demand. BUT the other preparations crowded out my physical prep. Pulling the intensive off is no small task in the first place, and I was adding to it preparing my home for airbnb guests during the summer, and 4 weeks in Boston followed by 2.5 weeks in NYC, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Williamsburg, VA. ADDED to my full-time job of being a mother. (Typing this out sure brings a measure of peace. For a year, I've wondered, "why did I not heed that prompting to exercise?" And if it was a prompting, I'm sure God would have provided a way. BUT it would have been an extraordinary addition to ALL I was juggling.) Sometimes I look back and wonder how in the world I have done so much!
So I put my knee out. Not out sufficiently to flag anyone I was able to see about it. I saw two chiropractors, the first who seemed to make it worse and the second that made it no better. And had no time nor money to do better for it before I was off for 6.5 weeks adventuring around the east coast. Suffering from knee issues all the way.
By the time I got home, I had developed ways to cope - I changed my gait - and ever since have just survived. Still thinking about my knee with almost every step. Just getting by.
That began to change when the trailer purchase was falling apart/coming together. That knee seize then was a new thing - a complete inability to straighten my leg. By then, I had refound my chiropractor who SKILLFULLY adjusts my knee. After the initial seize, I was able to get the knee moving again, and I began to see him in earnest to figure it out. (I found him in December, when I put my shoulder out. Again, my sense was that somehow there were a few tendons that had not found their place, and no one else was able to see or confirm this theory, let alone repair it. I saw a gal for massage and another chiropractor at that time with no luck. But my desperation and pain were intense and finally prompted the more desperate search which lead, at last, to re-finding Dr. Tuft.)
So I was able to get it adjusted. But it kept slipping out - seizing and leaving me limping more severely for days at a time. Dr. Tuft and I began digging a little deeper. He did further muscle tests and found my glutes weren't firing, muscles in my abs weren't either. He re-engaged these and there was improvement. AND STILL no answers.
Then, when my knee seized in the trailer at Lodge, it seemed to be the beginning of it being more out than in. Despite seeing Dr. Tuft regularly now, despite the muscles now doing their thing, and finally despite Dr. Tuft telling me my knee HAD quit slipping out of alignment, the knee was STILL grabbing. I was falling now. It would seize without weight on it, mid stride, and I would collapse to the floor in fear.
At this time, I had begun to teach ballet daily. The classes at Cache Valley School of Ballet had ended on May 11 with recitals, and I was trying to keep my private students in working order while they prepared for their summer programs. Two of my students are going to University of Utah. Another two are going to Boston for Boston Ballet's programs in Boston and Newton. Not only did the dancers need to maintain, but they needed help to IMPROVE and finally there was the studio availability to help them. The money I was making was nice too. But how frustrating that more and more was being spent on keeping my body well enough to teach! And I was able to teach to my satisfaction less and less, spending more time in a chair at the front of the room and just verbalizing corrections instead of really being able to work with the dancers' bodies.
One morning, around May 21 I think, I woke up early, around 4:30am, with pain in my knee. Laying there in the silent stillness, I had the peace and pressence and time to reflect on my life. I asked, "why am I teaching if I can barely walk?" and "how will I successfully parent if all my time and best body energy is spent teaching?" Then I began to ask, "What if I don't teach?" and I really liked the answers. I would have time for my kids! I would have time to manage the other stresses like renting the house on Airbnb. Stopping teaching immediately seemed like a necessity for my knee. It would mean a hit of about $1k. And I knew that so much time was still needed to pull the intensive together. I wondered if my knee would be well enough by August to teach. And if it wasn't, that would mean ALL the time I gave to the ballet would be a loss because I'm ONLY paid for teaching. Yet, how could I not teach at the Intensive? THAT hit would be about $4k. When Q finally woke up around 5:30am I told him my thoughts. I was nervous that he wouldn't be happy. We needed the money. We'd just spent $4k on van repair. But instead of hesitating, or telling me he thought I could suck it up and be strong, he just listened.
"I want to stop teaching," I said.
"Because of your knee?" he asked.
"Yes. I don't see how I can teach if I can't walk. But I'm worried about money. But I don't think I can keep doing this."
"OK," he said. And that was it! We talked about the Intensive in August. I wasn't ready to let go. I didn't want to say good-bye to $4k. I hoped to give myself a week to see how my body did. I thought with the extra time to take care of ME and diminished stress, I might just feel like teaching full time in August for 3 weeks was possible.
Then on May 23, without warning, my knee seized again. I was moving in my bathroom, from sitting on the side of the tub to rounding the corner to put something in the trash when it grabbed and I collapsed. Inside, something snapped too. "Enough!" I thought. I crawled to the carpet in my bedroom, called for a kid to bring me my computer and phone, and began cutting my ties to the ballet.
I had worried about letting the Intensive go. Who would take it over? Would I ever get it back? But I found clarity pretty fast. Vivian Taylor, a teacher who had taught at it with me ever since the beginning could manage. It wouldn't be exactly MY Intensive, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that I never directed it again. Maybe I didn't want to anyway! I called the board president, I called Vivian, I began sharing documents and schedules and contacts. I spent the next few hours letting go emotionally and quite literally. And it felt GREAT! A gigantic weight lifted.
The next day Ben Seale told me I had likely torn my meniscus and ordered an MRI. Dr. Tuft had done multiple tests on my meniscus and had assured me multiple times he did NOT think it was torn. But this orthopedic, after minimal physical exam and mostly just discussing my symptoms, DID. He was 90% sure. And I liked the pat answer and the pat solution.
Over the next bit of time, my knee did NOT get better, but that confirmed I was doing the right thing. NOT teaching was the right thing. Though I was scared for me knee, I felt it was a gift for my life: a solid reason to pivot. Now I could focus on my kids, on being with them, on homeschooling with them. With any extra time and energy I could write my books that have been eternally on back burners. I wouldn't have to juggle being in the trailer during our Airbnb stays with the commitment to be in the ballet studio. I would have time for my body - I could MAKE time. My body clearly needed it! And Q and I could work together on our mutual goals instead of me funding some and he funding others. Maybe this would strengthen our marriage too!
Into all of this hope crept the idea that it may not be a torn meniscus. I began talking to people who had torn theirs to get a sense of what was in store for me, and their experiences just didn't match up with mine. Without the MRI, it was anyone's guess what was going on. But I knew that either way, I'd need some help to strengthen my body, so I finally KEPT the appointment I'd made for myself with the physical therapist Q likes and got in to him on June 7. I'll note here that I had been feeling like I should see him. This was actually the 4th appointment I'd made to get in. But one appointment I'd given to Q. Another I'd given to Kai. And cancelled a 3rd because family things came up. I have just not done very well at making ME and MY needs the priority.
He examined me more closely than the orthopedic doc too, and told me he'd put money on it NOT being a torn meniscus. He DID have the advantage of some insight I'd had on my knee as well. Before going to see HIM, I noticed that I could not roll through my foot in a stride. I hypothesized that I had been swinging my lower leg to the side of my body because it was uncomfortable to bring it straight through. Then I was stepping on it, toe first, but on the outside of my foot instead of the center. No wonder my knee was struggling to find decent alignment! He added to this insight that my ankle had lost mobility and that I had no strength in my quad or butt. So he worked my calf to get my ankle to move, and worked a trigger point in my thigh that he theorized might be causing various muscles within my quad to fire randomly, pulling my knee cap every which way. He ALSO massaged right into the joint of my knee. Almost all of this was VERY painful. But immediately after his work, my leg felt much improved! He gave me a bunch of exercises, which of course, I have modified. I don't sense that he works with women often, nor does he trust that I know my body as well as he does. But I am making progress with what he asked me to do. AND my knee has not seized since.
But the pain remained.
So I finally DID get the MRI on June 18. It was shorter than I expected: 20 minutes instead of an hour. But no one told me about the noise. I did great, but I laughed to myself that if anyone had WANTED to invent audio torture, they could not have done much better than an MRI machine. If I'd known, I would have brought my OWN earplugs to add to the earphones they provided, especially since I couldn't hear the classical music they were playing!
Then I waited for a week to hear from the orthopedic. AND.... No meniscus tears. No tears of any kind! And given the improvement I saw after one appointment with a physical therapist, I shouldn't be surprised. By the time I heard from the doc, I'd been back to see the PT another time. This time we went in for Kai, to work on the shoulder he put out sleeping in the bunk in the trailer. But the PT worked on me too, and told me he would not have been able to get movement back in my joint if it had been a meniscus tear.
So that was the good news. The bad news was arthritis. And that seemed like very bad news to me. No surgery was going to magically restore my knee, unless it was MAJOR surgery. And that seemed inevitable: a knee replacement in my future. In the meantime, he was talking about hyaluronic acid injections. None of it sounded good. And the pain, despite it all, seemed ever present.
I realized, at long last, the emotional toll that this past year has taken. I posted about it on Facebook. Here is what I wrote:
Until 2 days ago I didn't realize how much my sense of self-worth/beauty was tied to my PHYSICAL sense of self - how it felt to inhabit and move in my body. Makes total sense that I have been wired this way, as a dancer. But struggling to walk over the past year has been struggling to be the me I know. And I've been diagnosed with arthritis now and I'm really tottering on my identity crumbling. Not because I can't dance. I haven't danced for years and mostly don't miss it. But because the me I remember, the inside me, the muscle memory, all of ME that is me to me (and that I thought would come back if I could just figure it out) may be gone forever. Sharing my inner process not to solicit advise on meditation, diet, treatment, fatih, or anything else. Just needing love despite what probably looks on the outside like an over-blown reaction to what might otherwise be called getting old.
The love came! Friends sent so many expressions of hope and empathy. MOST significant by far was Quent's. He came home mid-day to take me on a drive to tell me how much he loved me and that he thought I was beautiful. He even brought me a huge bouquet of roses! I had actually reached out to him via email asking for just this sort of help, but he had not seen it yet. Inspired! Later, he responded to my Facebook post this way:
This may be because those banged up knees helped you follow your heart to become a dancer, despite the odds, and achieve the goals you dreamed about since you were a tiny little girl.
Your imperfect knees are a symbol of your epic battle that you won! Just like Thor's lost eye/eyepatch after he battled Hela and ultimately won the day (until he replaced it with a bionic eye for some reason).
And just like Thor, you may someday replace your knees with super sexy bionic robocop knees with jetpacks and lasers and even more practical and less cool stuff I can't think of right now.
I love your fun, intelligent, sexy soul. Your cuteness. Your awkward jokes. The fun we have. The big ideas we talk about. Your own personal semi-Mormon theology. The "passionate stickler" you are in our house with our kids as their enforcer/teacher/mom. (see last Facebook note).
Your support for me and our kids to be our best selves and follow our big dreams in life.
You live life on your own terms and rarely take no for an answer when going after what you want and I love you for that.
You're the perfect woman for me in so many ways. You're my arm candy I proudly take out and about, but also my brain candy, and soul candy.
Love,
Q
So I am doing better! I have hope, inspired by the stories of my amazing friends who are as young as I am and MORE active than I am, who have also been told they have arthritis. And most blessedly, I have the support and love of my husband. He is so health-conscious. Much of what he has already learned is probably what I need. Certainly, it is a blessing to have ME care about longevity and quality of life as much as he does.
We will see what the future holds. My orthopedic has already called after meeting with us, to tell me that he would like to refer me to a specialist. I think we'll go, just to be informed about ALL the options. One way or another, whether through making better heath choices, or surgery, or both I hope to look back on this as a major blessing. In many ways - the increased love from Q, the choice to stop teaching and the simplification that has brought, the motivation to take care of ME - it already IS a major blessing.
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