I'm a flakesauce.

My reasons:
1. I never update this thing.
2. I keep having schools send me transfer info but I'm way too lazy to think about filling anything out.
3. I'm riding next semester instead of taking pointe class regularly.


So I saw Kocher way back on December 1st and he turned me loose. Basically, Hinton is a crackpot. My MRI was spotless; I just have an inflamed iliopsoas and he's got me popping enough ibuprofen in the hopes of calming it down that I can feel my liver crying. But I'm done with that tomorrow (?...again, I'm a flakesauce). I think its helping but I can definitely tell when it's wearing off.

But I'm dancing again. It feels awesome. I haven't been able to go through passe on both legs for three freaking years! It's so bizarre! And not having to remember to be careful about either one--I can finally remember combinations again! Well...sort of; my memory is shot from the time off. Righty gets a little angry when I push the develope a la second and devant too much (but we're talking when I'm pushing for things decently over 90, in the past I couldn't go past 45); lefty I can feel ramming into scar tissue when I push the turnout too much--but I can tell it's all temporary; I'm finally going to GET BETTER. I have to get my ass back into shape though. Dance major review is in early Feb and apparently I may be in danger. I guess they finally realized that, though next semester will be my 4th here, it will only be my second dancing. And apparently that's not cool for a dance major.

The other exciting news is that I'm riding next semester. I know that I quit in a rather irrational and rash decision so it only seems right that my decision to start again would be equally irrational and rash. Since Kocher was cool with it, I figured what the heck and set up an evaluation ride and all that fun stuff. None of the lesson times really fit in my schedule but I figured it didn't hurt to see. And the head instructor was really nice. So I decided that having pointe three times a week is rather unnecessary and it wouldn't hurt to just take it as an audit so I could ride instead. Yea...Again, flakesauce.


Finals suck.

The end.

Are we for cereal?

I saw Dr. Hinton on Tuesday.

Surprise surprise, he wants to schedule a cortisone injection before I go home for Thanksgiving and see Kocher. I don't have time for that right now--I have 2 lab papers, 5 exams, and 2 quizzes before Thanksgiving in addition to having to declare a major and register for courses. I don't have time to haul my crippled ass into downtown Baltimore, wait around for a bit, and then have the injection. I just don't have time for that kind of shit. AND I kind of want to see Kocher first, or at least hear from him (spoke with his PA on Wednesday night...still waiting to hear back) before I do this. I expressed this concern to Hinton who feels like we might as well just do it now but, yeah, not going to happen.

The highlight of my visit, aside from the fact that his office was running an hour and a half late (to which everyone in the waiting room was freaking out about; clearly they've never experienced Children's!! I'm psyched if I get out of there in any less than 3 hours!) and I had to sprint both to the bus from Orgo lab and then from the bus to get to music, was when he dropped the "open surgery" bomb on me. I was like "WHAT?! are you freaking serious?!" In his funny little Southern-but-not-quite accent he explained to me the whole procedure and how they'd be able to clean out any bone spurs and/or residual impingement. No freaking way. No matter how you slice it (no pun intended), I'm not planning for another surgery at this point--scope or open! And there's no way in hell that I'd have it done in Baltimore. Not going to happen. So I'm waiting to hear back from Kocher and seeing what he wants me to do.

And, since misery loves company, Mr. Lefty has been complaining lately too. I think it's probably because we backed off of it in PT a bit. It's definitely tendonitis-y feeling though, nothing horrbily alarming or really all that unexpected--Righty pulled this same BS last year at about the same point.

I've got quite the marathon sprint to Thanksgiving ahead of me though. I'm really hating this semester in terms of course load. Next semester should be nice though--I'm only going to be taking 15 credits (and only 1 audit!!) as opposed to the 18 I've had for the past two (and last spring it was 18 + 3 audits!); just orgo, genetics, and a bunch of dance.

Introducing Annie! and other things....

My 8 year old puppy Willy died two weeks ago. Given that my family copes with the loss of a pet by getting a new one, we've just adopted Annie--a 6 month old little girl. She arrived yesterday, all the way from Indiana!! I wanted to go home but, with $14.46 in my bank account, I couldn't even afford the China bus. Anyways, here she is!







So of course I had to go to Petco today to get her a new girly collar, some fun toys, and some toys for Abby so that she doesn't feel totally neglected. I'm spoiling her rotten before we even meet!

Since we were already at Petco, we also popped into Target for some clearance Halloween candy....Jess and I each walked out with $10 worth. So basically we've got $40 worth of Halloween candy in our room right now. This is bad. I'm dancing again in less than a month. I have to wear a leotard in less than a month. Not going to be a pretty sight...


Tuesday will be 9 weeks out from surgery, 4 to go until I see Kocher. Tuesday is also the day I go back to see Dr. Hinton down here to further discuss the fate for my right hip--the steroids didn't work. I don't even know what I want to hear. I know that whatever it is, it can't be good. The lesser of all the evils at this point is probably that I've managed to give myself a really nice case of psoas tendonitis/bursitis--though that doesn't really explain the pinching and the catching that's been going on. So it's more likely that it's another labral tear--bad news bears. Needless to say, I'm freaking out.

So, about that...

As we can tell, I tend to forget about this thing. But in times like these where my procrastinating tendencies prevail (lab paper for cells, orgo take home, and french compositions oh my!), we can see where my priorities fall...

I had the surgery. Eight weeks ago on Tuesday. Mr. Lefty is doing really crazily well--if the scars weren't so red and lovely, I'd tell you it couldn't have ever happened. The biggest perk is that I gained about 10 degrees of turnout this time around which means that for the first time EVER I'll have an even first position. That is if I can ever figure out how to actually use those last 10 degrees...it's the only spot that I'm rather laughably weak in at the moment.

Righty isn't doing so hot. Actually, Righty is doing alot like Lefty was at this time last year. As in they think I have a labral tear. They being Kocher, guy Kocher sent me to in Baltimore, and multiple PTs. In case anyone is keeping score, that'd be 3 tears for the right and 1 for the left. Hinton, the guy Kocher sent me to, put me on a kickass dose of Naproxen for 10 days which did pretty much nothing. So he then stuck me on a Medrol dose pack--aka steriods--for 6 days. I'm at the end of day 5 and, big surprise, nada. I think this means I get a cortisone injection which I'm kind of not sure I'm cool with.

I'm 4ish weeks away from my next visit with Kocher, the one at which he'll hopefully turn me loose to head back to ballet. With Righty the way it is though, I'm not sure how cool he'll be with that or really want the plan is at this point. Hinton says an MRI will be pretty darn useless since it's already had 2 surgeries and I've pretty adamently declared that I'm in no hurry to have a 4th hip surgery before my 21st birthday, particularly one on Mr. Righty. I guess will just have to see how the cortisone works? At any rate, I've already scheduled my flight back a day later so I can go to ballet class that night. I'm a bamf, can't you tell?

My post-surgery spot on the couch is already warm

You'd really think that, with all the time I've spent on the couch in the past week that I'd have had the surgery already. But you'd be wrong. I'm still waiting.

Almost 3 weeks ago, one of our kitties got hit by a car and was killed. After spending a couple of days trying to find a new cuddle buddy in our other cat and finding myself just getting beaten up, I decided to get a kitten. So two weeks ago tomorrow, I adopted little Abby. Not even a week after getting her, she had to have surgery to remove an assortment of things from her belly--apparently she's part lab. While she's recuperating, she's not allowed out of the play pen we've got set up for her...except she's a little attention whore and hates being alone (she's currently asleep on my belly) so someone has to be with her at all times. Dad is at work, Brother #1 is away, and Mom and Brother #2 are on vacation. That leaves me to have Abby duty all day. We're bffls now. Thank God for Netflix and wireless internet.

Still next in line on the surgery list. ahewamnfajsdbchwe. I'm supposed to go back to school in 3 weeks and I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm currently still enrolled in 10.5 credits worth of dance classes and I know that's not going to work out so well. Whateva, Whateva I'll do what I want. But it's looking more and more like I'll be using that Sept. 2nd scope date and missing the first week of classes. But I run with 12 gangs and we only commit hate crimes so, whateva, whateva, I'll do what I want.

South Park Cartman On The Maury Show | Funny Jokes at JibJab

I think I managed to make whatever tear I've got a bit bigger last night in class. Either that or I managed to just really jam the impingement into what tear was already there. I felt the all too familiar grabbing pinch in the joint when I landed from a saut de chat. My weight was too far forward in an attempt to get my back leg up and land quietly--forgetting of course that I would be landing on my left leg. But hey, at least I landed quietly despite the cow bells of pointe shoes I was wearing last night. Same feeling from the spring when I landed really hard on my knee on my way down sliding to the floor out of a tour en l'air for my modern practicum. And the same feeling (though not nearly as bad) as when I first screwed up my right hip--coming out of a tombe coupe jete when my body kept turning but my legs didn't and SNAP.

Next in line

After rather persistent bothering of Dr. Kocher's surgical coordinator, I've learned that I'm next in line for a hip scope and that "he has a ton of hips on his schedule". Not entirely sure what that means, but I'm assuming it means I've got decent odds at getting in for my surprise surgery soon. I started out, on July 7th, as #4 on his waiting list for a 1.5 hour time slot in the OR. I'm not entirely sure if that means I was also #4 for a hip scope or what. At any rate, my fingers are crossed.

I've been barely sleeping at night this past week--the hip has taken a sharp turn for the worse. Until this week, I was doing grand plies and grand allegro anyways, just because they didn't make things too much worse. Well, I quit the grand plies this week and only did grand allegro once. What I hate more than anything is having to sit out grand allegro--definitely one of my favorite parts of class just because I can really move and eat up the space. Something just always feels so good and dancey about it. I can't wait until I don't have to think twice about doing a combination again--until the day that I don't have to wonder about how much worse doing something is going to make my hips hurt.

I did take class on Tuesday, with Emily, the teacher I hadn't seen in years. It ended up being a pretty easy class and, at only an hour and a half long, it felt like nothing compared to Mary's 4+ hour classes. Don't get me wrong, I love Mary's classes so much and this class only made me appreciate how much her classes have helped me to grow, but there's something to be said about not having to think about the combination before doing it and feeling comfortable enough with the movement to just totally throw yourself into it and DANCE. But oh, class on Wednesday was down right dreadful. I haven't had such an off class since the modern class during the dance major review in February (and that time I at least had an excuse, though it couldn't have been at a worse time to have a HORRIBLE class--it was my 3rd modern class after four months off...haha, good one).

Oh yes, and good old Mr. Psoas Tendonitis is paying the right hip a visit. He's quite the unwelcome guest. I'm sure it's all compensation related--another reason why I can't wait for all this to be over!

On the subject of pet peeves and other things

Things that bother me, and why:
1. Small yappy dogs. Not sure why but I've never really been a fan. Cute when they belong to someone else but not when they're yours.

2. Small cars. This is a new dislike of mine--I finally put my finger on it today whilst spending 8 hours in a rental car to bring my littlest brother to camp. For one, I like to ride with my feet up on the dashboard--lets me stretch out my legs--in a small car, this is rather uncomfortable as the windshield is far too close and the dashboard far too high in comparison to the seat. Yes, I'm dancer and am quite flexible but it kind of defeats the purpose of being able to stretch out your legs when your knees are nearing your nose. Additionally, I've found that my feet just love to get tangled among themselves whilst trying to get out of the very low to the ground seat. I nearly killed myself in parking lots trying to get out of the car several times today. And, with my grandma hips and being at least 5'9'', I appreciate the extra leg room that a minivan or other similarly unfortunate vehicle affords.

3. Gel deodorant. I mean really? Am I supposed to wait until it dries before I put my shirt on? If you don't, isn't that like having pre-sweaty pits?

4. Non-jersey sheets. As an active sleeper, I need the extra friction. Not only does it help stop my sheets from tying themselves into knots, it also helps keep me in bed.



Anyways...spent today driving out to Western MA and back to leave the littlest bro at camp (littler bro is already there working). So I'm an only child for two weeks! woohoo!? I definitely plan on taking full advantage and livin' it up. I've already switched up the Netflix big time! And I had the whole weekend off from work--and no phonecalls at 6am asking if I could come in, it has been pretty nice. But I will be getting a nice big fat paycheck come Friday...that'll be nice.

Back to the grind (no pun intended...) tomorrow. Just working 3-6 though. Almost not worth the gas it'll take to get there--that only gets me $24+tips but -taxes. Definitely the sucky part about working a lame minimum wage job. Oh how I miss the sweetness of my job last summer! Then ballet class from 6:30-10 or so, assuming the hip will cooperate that long. Also planning on giving Kocher's office a ringy-dingy tomorrow to see if I've moved at all on the waiting list. I JUST WANT SURGERY DATE DARN IT!! The night before the surg, I'm totally planning on doing everything I'm not supposed to...like grand plies, grand battements, things over 45 degrees, passe/retire, using full turnout, and doing a full grand allegro--i'm such a bamf. haha. Considering I'm still struggling on remember which is my good leg and which is my bad (it's a challenge considering that right was bad for the past two years but now it's dear old lefty), I probably already do at least half those things without even realizing it until I get the dreaded pinch of death. I swear there's gotta be a leprechaun in there with a little dagger just stabbing me...f-ing leprechauns...

Really excited for Tuesday though--planning on taking class with a teacher I haven't seen in over 3 years. She hasn't seen me since the week before I injured myself. I can't believe it's been that long!

So, let's check in...

It's now July, I last updated this puppy back in March. As we can see, I'm pretty on top of things...NOT!

I'm currently in the process of re-crafting my schedule for the fall. What I thought was going to be an ideal schedule of lots of dance classes + cell bio + organic chem has been foiled by a hip surgery. That seems to be the trend with alot of my plans--a hip surgery always gets thrown into the mix and then the plans don't work out so well anymore! So now I'm dealing with a bit of a scheduling nightmare.

So yea, about that hip surgery. After two MRIs, one failed arthrogram (and one successful arthrogram...nothing like a big-ass needle being dug around in your hip on two separate occasions within two weeks of each other to make you just love life!), and two months of 3x weekly PT at 8 in the morning, I saw Dr. Kocher who agreed with everyone else (me, my PTs, the resident that was in the room, and my ballet teachers)--as a dancer, I need the surgery done if I ever want to get back the hope of having any sort of career in dance. He said that were I a "normal person," he'd probably want to wait on the surgery a bit longer and see if more PT might bring about more success. So here we go--hip surgery round 3!!! It's at this point that I feel the need to point out (again) that I'm only 19--I'm nobody's grandma.

At any rate, surgery's scheduled for September 2nd. Absolutely fabulous timing--I'm supposed to move back to Baltimore on the 1st. haha. I'm on his waiting list and, as of last Monday, I was #4--they're promising me that I'll get in before I have to go back to school. We shall see. It's kind of like flying standby--you know it'll happen, you just don't know when. So I'm calling it my "Surprise! You're having surgery!" hip surgery. Nothing like finding out a day or two beforehand that your going to be on crutches for a month and cripple for 3. It's kind of just my style though; I love flying by the seat of my pants!

My current place of employment (Dunkin Donuts...don't wanna talk about it) of course, knows nothing. They can't fire me about it, but they sure as hell can cut back my hours since I could find out at any moment that I'm having surgery tomorrow and then won't be able to work. Personally, this is a total plus to having surgery the surprise style--the stress of having to give two weeks notice is totally out the window! And I get to quit my job earlier than I intended! woohoo! The job is not without it's perks though--the free coffee is quit nice. As is the little promotion they've got going on right now--the one where you peel the stickers off the cups and win shit. Yea. It's nice, but it ain't gonna be missed!

I'm going to try and make a bit more of an effort to update this thing. Chronicling my life leading up to and following my third hipscope and the never ending thrills of college life. haha.

I guess you can just call me grandma...

Saw the doc yesterday for my 5 month check on the dear old right hip. He said it shouldn't be feeling as good as it does which is absolutely fantastic--apparently people usually still have issues just leading "normal" lives until they're at least 6 months out, and I'm dancing on it now without a problem. Woohoo! Other fantastic (this time used in the sarcastic sense) news from the visit includes that I probably have a labral tear chillaxin' over in the left hip which explains why its been all lovely and crunchy lately. I have the pleasure of getting that MRI'ed and injected in two weeks...April 4th...at 8:30 in the morning! great fun! especially because I get to brave the MTA Maryland system out to suburbian hell again. I thought I was done doing that when I quit going to PT...hmmm. Nobody would feel like driving me to Pikesville then, would they? I'd bake you cookies....

Seriously...

Right now, we're 3 for 3 in terms on fire alarms. Had one this morning at 8am--went off right as I stepped out of the shower. Part of me was really hoping that it was just a really loud alarm clock. It wasn't. Some asshat probably was on their way out and pulled the thing. Seriously, we're college students and I'm highly doubtful that you were drunk at 8am on a Monday morning--grow the fuck up. So I arrived at my 8:30 class highly disheveled and with frozen hair. Just the way I like to start off my week... at least all dance classes were canceled today because there are scholarship auditions for incoming freshmen--means I'm done for the day as of 10:30 this morning. Just have to go to work this afternoon. Playing with 1st graders; a good time is bound to ensue.

Oh yes, and it's still a winter wonderland out in my hallway....

I wish I could make this stuff up

The events of this weekend have directly influenced the creation of this blog. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. My roommate and I decided we should write a novel...I suppose a blog is a close second.


I should probably preface all of this with a bit of an introduction. I'm a freshman in college, studying dance and biology with a pre-med concentration. Originally from Boston, now in school in Baltimore. All this dorm stuff is old hat to me, I went away to boarding school when I was 14. Not really sure where "home" is any more. I've had hip surgery twice over the past two years, a third may or may not be on the horizon for this summer. We'll focus on one oddity a week for now--this week's will be the hip surgery, next week perhaps the boarding school thing, and the following my choice of majors. Or maybe not.

Yes, I'm fully aware that most 19 year olds haven't had multiple hip surgeries. I'm just extra cool and special like that I suppose. Two years ago, back when I was a silly and naive newly turned 17 year old, I was dumb enough to believe the idiot of a dance teacher that told me doing a straddle leap within the first 10 minutes of class was a good idea--I landed, my leg twisted in, and I felt something crunch in my right hip. After being tossed around by a couple of docs (including being put on crutches "just to see"), I got one to agree to MRI the thing and was informed I had a labral tear. Fun stuff. That doc also agreed to do arthroscopic surgery to, as far as I knew at the time, fix it. 18 months later, something was up. Went back, he MRI'ed it and I had another tear. Fantastic because I hadn't done anything out of the ordinary (ok, so I suppose dancing 40 hours a week isn't exactly normal, but we've already established that I'm not all that normal either). He told me that I was crazy, there was nothing wrong--umm, hello, I could see the tear on the MRI myself and I haven't even gone to med school yet. So I walked out of his office. Yada yada yada. Finally, in August, after have more x-rays than most people get in a lifetime, a cortisone injection, a CT scan, and spending more hours in PT and in my ortho's office than I spent at my job, we discovered that my femoral head took after myself in terms of not being totally normal (see, I tell you, being normal is overrated! Even my bones aren't normal!). So I had another arthroscopic surgery to fix that (mine's figure B) and the new labral tear in October. Got to spend a month crutching around a college campus and into suburbian hell for PT. They let me loose to do whatever I pleased again on January 17th and started letting me jump again on Valentine's Day (aww, isn't that sweet...). Now we've got some problemos over in Mr. Left hip, but je ne sais pas what's up with that. Probably the same thing which is just superb. I've always wanted old lady hips! (some kid, during my month of crutching joy, asked what the crutches were for. When he heard it was because I had hip surgery, his response was none other than "oh, my grandma had that"...). Enough about that. You'll probably hear more about it later.


So this weekend. Yea.

Friday was rather uneventful. The fuse blew in half our room again (we weren't even using the hairdryer this time!) but they fixed it and life went on. Then I thought my roommate might have been killed by an armed robber on the loose when she didn't come back until midnight, but she was just in the library.

Saturday rudely interrupted my sleep pattern at 2am when for some reason (probably a hippy smoking a hooka in their room) the fire alarm went off. Did I mention it was cold and windy outside? No, well, it was. Fine enough, got back to sleep around 2:30am. 8:30am rolled around and my alarm clock awoke me for work. It was pouring rain and this was unbeknownest to me until I was sprinting out of my dorm to get to work on time. So I looked like a drowned puppy. Got back from work and we discovered that our suite was on the last roll of toilet paper so the roommate and I ventured out to Target (in the windy wetness) to get some. All is well aside from the overwhelming number of choices for toilet paper. I believe we went with Scott. We make our return to find that the back gate of campus is closed and locked because it is now after dark. Rather than walk the extra mile to the front gate, we hop the fence. This is not an easy task while wearing rain gear and carrying lots of bags. In the process, my roommate rips her pants and we (only slightly) break the fence. We trek through the woods with the promise of a warm dorm room on the other side. Roommate gets taken out by a down tree--lands in the mud. At this point, we decide we should write a novel. Get back to the room and head off to watch some African films for one of my roommate's classes. We almost get blown away on the walk there. And find that one of the windows has been blown out. We survive and, after some trouble with the remotes, even watch the DVD! We decided that, if the day had been made into a Facebook album, it'd be titled "The Adventures of Gimpy and Split Pants Girl".

Sunday...oh, Sunday. So. Fire alarm went off at 4am. We were fucking pissed. Then we opened the door to the hallway and were overwhelmed with white powdery smoke. Some drunk asshats decided to empty 6 fire extinguishers in our hall. Fantastic. They've "cleaned" it up, but it still is like a freaking winter wonderland out in the hall. Oh how I love college.