Monday, April 28, 2014

Whispers in the bathroom

In the beginning of February, as I bailed out of yet another class after barre, I told the instructor that I had an appointment with my doctor to see why I was feeling so breathless during class, and promised her I'd be back after we'd figured it out. This morning I took a Beginner 2 class from this same instructor for the first time since then. After barre I had a brief chat with her, and she welcomed me back, saying she'd guessed it was something more serious than just bronchitis.

One of the regulars at the school hurt her back a month ago, and she finally had to take a 3 week break from classes to let it heal. She's just coming back from that. While getting some corrections this morning she tried to use that as an excuse, but the instructor was having none of it. After class a friend reported that she'd overheard a bathroom conversation about this: I suspect someone thought the instructor should have gone easier on her, given her 3-week layoff, but she replied that she couldn't really complain since I was just back from a 10-week layoff and was just 7 weeks post-op. Hearing that gave me a smile.

As happy as I am to have things returning to normal, it's still a mixed bag. I'm occasionally screwing up combinations that should be easy. I think this is just a matter of focus, but there is a fair amount of documentation suggesting that long periods of general anesthesia can result in occasional hiccups in memory lasting months afterward. My demi-pointe still isn't as high as it was, and holding relevé for any length of time makes my calf muscles hurt. All this will pass in time, I'm sure, but it's still frustrating. And watching the Advanced Beginner class from the hallway afterward... well, let's not dwell on that.

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