Update #1

Three weeks since the break - Recovery from surgery wasn't as bad as expected. Mostly I struggled with the fact that my body cannot tolerate any kind of narcotic. My doctor prescribed dilaudid and that worked well for about a week and a half until I got insanely sick from it. I've been off pain meds for awhile now and I've learned to cope with the pain in other ways (lots of books, cat cuddling, library work, and Netflix).

For the past three weeks I have been in a soft cast. This is really just a splint with some bandages wrapped around it so it's pretty easy to bump my leg on something and be in a lot of pain. Today at my first post-op appointment, they took the soft cast off, took the stitches out, took some x-rays, and then put me in a proper hard cast. IT FEELS SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!!! I should also say that, when I was younger, I always kind of envied the kids at school who would occasionally show up with a cast on. I loved how friends could sign the cast and every time they looked at their injured limb, they are reminded of all the people who wished them well. I was oddly excited when the nurse let me pick out the color (purple please!) and started wrapping me up.

As far as the healing goes, the x-rays show good progress on the bone healing and the incisions have closed up well without a trace of infection. The one not so awesome thing is that my foot is swollen because I have not been diligent about elevating my leg above my heart. In my defense, it's really hard to do that when you still have to go to work and live a life. I can't just lay around all day with my leg up. I have important stuff to do ;)

I should be in a walking boot in about two weeks and then in a month I'm supposed to go back to the doc again but I cant remember why (I was too enamored with my new pretty purple cast-foot to listen!). I'm pretty sure it will be a final check up before he pawns me off to the physical therapist.

I think about skating every day. Sometimes it's hard and I need to force myself to stop thinking about it because it's kind of depressing knowing that I can't skate right now. In other ways, it's therapeutic. I'm trying to keep the patterns in my head and remind my muscles how it feels to land a certain jump or ride an edge. I'm hoping that I can get back on the ice by January. I know I won't be able to do anything fancy and I'll spend a lot of time just re-learning the basics but I'll be on the ice and that's all that really matters.

So yeah, I'm still hanging in there :)

Them's the Breaks!

Where have I been? I've been broken, actually. Like REALLY broken!

I went to the Stable on Sunday July 2nd for my weekend practice and all was going well. I ran through my entire MIF and Freestyle test elements several times and everything felt solid. No issues. After an hour of running through all of that, I started working on spins and jumps. I finally got more than one revolution on my camel and that was encouraging. I did some nice backspins in the flamingo position that felt spintastic. And then I moved on to jumps. I did several salchows that felt slowed down like I wanted and I had just started working on loops. I did a couple that felt really nice, like I had the free leg crossed in front and everything! I was lining up for another loop from backward crossovers and before I even left the ice for the jump, I heard a pop and then intense pain that had me writhing on the ice before I could even comprehend what happened!

I didn't scream out in pain or cry (yet), I just kind of laid there, stunned. People continued to skate around me like it's just completely normal for someone to be laying on the ice. Finally, a kid skated up to me and asked me if I was alright. I said "no" and asked if he could please get someone to help me. He left and again, I just laid there on the ice for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, a dad who was there with his son came up to me and asked if he could help me get off the ice. He tried to pick me up but it just wasn't working so he got a chair and brought it to me and, once he got me seated, he slid me to the closest entrance and got me off the ice. Mind you, during this whole time, not a single staff member came out to assist. I had to again ask someone to get a staff member to help me. In the meantime, I called Dustin and told him to come quick because I thought I broke my ankle.

At this point, the pain kicked in and I think I was starting to go into shock because I was getting insanely cold. Finally, staff came with a clipboard to ask me questions and fill out an incident report. Someone on the staff advised me not to take my boot off (Not like I could anyway. The mere weight of the boot alone was killing me). Once Dustin got there and we determined that there was no way to get me into the car to go the ER, I agreed to have EMS come and take me via ambulance. How embarrassing.

Thankfully, they gave me some super pain meds for the ride because I was losing it with the amount of pain. X-rays confirmed the breaking news (see what I did there?). I broke my ankle which pushed everything outward to break by fibula. So yeah, I didn't just break my ankle, I broke my leg as well and it would have been much worse if my skate boot hadn't kept everything contained.

I had surgery on the 7th with an orthopedist that just does ankles and I am now the proud owner of a newly rebuilt ankle and leg. The good news is that I will be able to skate again in the future (including jumps). The bad news is that it will take quite a while to heal from this. The doctor estimated that I should be able to comfortably return to the ice about a year from now (maybe a bit sooner if I am diligent with my PT).

I ended up emailing Christopher when I was in the ER and told him what happened and that I may possibly be done with skating entirely (I was on a lot of drugs and was feeling very doom and gloom). He was so kind and offered to stop by my apartment to bring some food that his wife had made for us just to help out a little. He came over to the apartment after my surgery and he was able to talk to me about some options for when I return (because I have now decided that I'm not going to let this break me (eh?)). He talked about the possibility of just focusing on MIF or switching gears entirely and working on testing through the Ice Dance levels, which I can do solo if I want.

I have a lot of support and some really good people in my life who are rooting for me. Skating is also my passion and I can't let this one event determine my future. I will rise above! So, this journal may be silent for a while although I may periodically post some progress reports. In the meantime, I will keep running my MIF in my mind and watch videos so that I don't forget anything. I also think it's helpful to watch some skating in person. I went to a freestyle session the day before my surgery just to watch and that reminded me how much I love the ice and how badly I want to return to it. I WILL BE BACK! Below are the before and after x-rays of my left ankle/leg. Enjoy!

Edit - So I know in the second x-ray it looks as though the one screw in the middle is floating. It's not. The doc screwed that one in from the back so that he could connect the two broken ends together. In other words, it's supposed to look like that ;)

Thursday Morning Lesson

Christopher got on the ice and showed me some clips from the Ariel Challenge that took place last week at the Broadmoor Open. My jaw was on the floor. Tim Dolensky is superhuman! I mean...what?!

We talked a bit about what testing will be like the day of. He showed me where the judges will be sitting and talked about what to expect if there is another skater testing their Moves at the same time as me. The judges will not be in the hockey box like I thought but rather up in the stands so I won't really get to skate up to them and introduce myself like I have seen others do on the tests I've viewed on YouTube. For the MIF test, I'm supposed to pause after each individual move, set up for the next thing, and then wait until they look as though they are done writing their comments. For the Freeskate test, I should expect to perform each element in the order listed on the judging form, hold the landing for about three seconds, present, then start transitioning to set up for the next thing. So, like 10 seconds or so between each element. We worked a bit on the presenting part.

After that was done, we ran the Freeskate in its entirety with brief stops along the way for corrections.

• Waltz Jump - Looks nice. Hold that landing for three seconds, step forward, present, and transition. 
• Salchow - I'm not checking the initial three turn and my arms aren't quite correct. After a strong check, my right arm should be back and my left arm should be slightly crossed over in front of my body. You'd be surprised how much of a difference this makes once you make these corrections! Hold the landing for three seconds, step forward, present, and transition. 
• One-Foot Upright Spin - Spin spin spin, landing position held for three seconds, step forward, present, and transition. 
• Two-Foot Spin - Spin spin spin, landing position, step forward, present, and transition. 
• Crossovers - 6 forward, mohawk, 6 backward, landing position held for three seconds, step forward, present, and transition. 
• Lunge - Hold a steady lunge for four seconds, get up, forward crossover, present. Skate to the judges, face them, and curtsy as a "thank you."

We didn't have much time left but he wanted to see CCW and CW stroking. These are fine but he would like to see more underpush on the end crossovers and more of a waltz count for each stroke. This needs more fluidity. I've been able to improve my extensions but instead of just extending and holding my free leg behind me, he wants it to be a bit more dance-like with constant fluid motion and extension. So, I got the extension right, just not the fluidity. Next he wanted to see my Crossovers in the Figure Eight. He advised me to make a bigger pattern instead of sticking to the lines on the hockey circles. Sticking to the size of the hockey circles is ok for a smaller pattern like the Waltz 8 but this move can be BIG! He even suggested practicing it in the middle of the rink so I can make it even bigger and fit in more crossovers. Some other corrections included more underpush on my CW forward crossovers and to more clearly emphasize the change of edge in the swingroll transition. Homework!

Wednesday Night Cram

The Sport Stable changed their schedule around again so I had to find another rink to go to for my Wednesday Night Cram session. I drove to the Apex Arena in Arvada and it was pleasantly uncrowded. In fact, it was so quiet when I got on the ice for my warm-up that I could hear the ice cracking under my skates. I'm not sure if this is normal but I have never heard it before and it was kind of unsettling to be honest. Eventually, a couple of hockey guys joined the session along with a younger girl who looked to be working on Pre-Preliminary (Yay, an equal!).

My goal for this session was to focus first on Pre-Bronze MIF and Freestyle and then with whatever time was left over I was going to dedicate to jumps, spins, and maybe some Bronze MIF. I feel like if I had to give myself a grade for my Pre-Bronze MIF it would be a solid B. I think it's above average but there is definitely some room to grow on these. I'm not worried about passing but I would really like to get these to an A- or a solid A. My forward outside edges felt really good! In fact, this was the first time that I could hear them rip! I was also getting a rip on my return to center on the Waltz 8. This is exciting! This means my edges are getting stronger (well, at least my FO are anyway) :)

Jumps were okay. I think I have been trying so hard lately to slow down my salchow that I might have ruined them? I don't know. They are just all over the place now. I gave up on them after a bit and will just let Christopher deal with it during our lesson tomorrow. Waltz jumps were comfortable. Loops are getting much better now that I'm focusing on my arms and making sure my free leg is crossed in front. When I do a loop as part of a combo, however, I'm still struggling with getting the free leg crossed in front. It's next to my skating leg in a flamingo position, but not crossed. I did some flips. They were not spectacular by any means but I worked on them as promised.

I had a really nasty fall while working on backspins. I'm getting more comfortable getting the rotations in the flamingo position but I know Christopher wants to see me do these with the free leg crossed in front. I tried it, I fell, it hurt. Some of my nastiest falls have been on backspins and back threes. It's just so easy to have your heel slip out from under you and those are the falls that hurt the most. Christopher is just going to have to be patient with me on these. I really need some time to get the hang of this (and maybe get some padded pants!).

I had about 15 minutes left over to work on some upcoming moves. Power Threes on both sides are feeling better although that step forward after the back crossover is a real pain in the ass. I did the Five Step Mohawks on the blue line and my good side feels good and my bad side feels bad. That's to be expected, I guess. Power Stroking felt rushed going forward, nice and easy going backward. I didn't do Circle Eight or Alternating Back Crossovers to BO Edges because I just didn't have it in me at this point. I wanted to go home and eat a cheeseburger, binge some Netflix, and cuddle my cat. I'm an adult and I can do what I want :)

Weekend "Practice"

So, you know what's super frustrating? The fact that you can have a really great practice like the one I last posted about and then two days later you can't skate. Like all of your skills are just gone. I fell while working on forward edges! What the hell? And forget about jumping. Spinning? A disaster!

I.can't.even....literally!

Edit: Ok, I've been thinking about this for a bit. It wasn't entirely a lost cause. Dustin went with me to Apex on Friday night and it was really uncrowded so that was nice. Because I wanted to impress a boy (I love you, Dustin!) I did plenty of Flips and he gave me corrections from the stands. I know he's not a coach but he still sees things that I can't. He agrees that these are not quite there yet but was proud of me for doing them. He understands the struggle.

Facing My Fears

Tonight's practice was all about being brave, confident, and sure of myself. My goal was to work on the Flip jump and if I fall at least I know I was brave enough to try. Before the Flip attempts, I wanted to make sure I was properly warmed up.

Movez: I took some video of myself doing the backward outside and inside consecutive edges. The lobes look fine and are of equal number (which is neat because I'm not counting them, they just kind of work out that way on their own!). I really do tend to pick up speed down the line and I'm not sure this is a good thing. Once I get about halfway down the line, things start to pick up and because of the increase in speed, I feel like I'm not spending enough time with my extensions. Also, I gotta remember head position on my back inside edges. So these are definitely passable but they still need a hell of a lot of polishing. I worked on the rest of my Pre-Bronze moves and there is nothing new to report there. I'm just keeping them under my feet at this point.

Spinz: I didn't spend too much time on these because the ice was so torn up from hockey. I was able to find some patches of ice that were smooth where I could spin. I was pretty proud of this nicely centered scratch spin!

Jumpz: I ran through my usual repertoire of jumps to start off with but I spent the majority of my time prepping for the Flip. I did many loops where I focused on my arm position (easier said than done) and I did the mohawk entry where I lift my leg into the "h" position and do a hop instead of the jump. After a good 10 minutes on this I attempted my Flip. It was scary as hell but I got around for a full rotation and I landed it! Following that I did Flip after Flip after Flip to just reinforce it and stave off that fear. They definitely deteriorated the more I did them but...they happened! My new short term goal is to get this to the point where if Christopher asks me to do one in our next lesson, I just say "okay" and do it. No hesitation! I know it's not a beautiful jump right now but I'm more proud of the fact that I said I would work on it and didn't make an excuse not to. I didn't let my self-doubt consume me. :)

Monday Morning Lesson

I hate Mondays. I hate mornings. I'm not particularly fond of Monday mornings. But, alas. We are on a different schedule this week because of the Broadmoor Open. I drank a ton of coffee before getting on the ice so I was adequately buzzed by the time I got laced up and on the ice!

Christopher got on the ice carrying the fishing pole harness. We talked about my Flip fear during our last lesson so this was in anticipation of strapping me in and hopefully getting me past that fear barrier. Guess what we didn't need to use? Yup, I was able to at least attempt the Flip today without the harness so there was no need for it. More on that later. He asked me what I wanted to focus on today so I told him I wanted to work on jumps and moves because, frankly, they both need some work.

• Backspin - I should have known this was coming. I was able to do some decent ones in the upright position as predicted but he would really like to see me performing this in the crossed-leg position. Believe me, I would like to see this too! The backspin is just going to be a thing I work on forever probably. Everyone has that one skill that is their nemesis. This is mine. It seems like no matter how many times I practice this, it just stays the same. Ugh. Stupid backspin!
• Loop Jump - The jump itself is fine but my arms are funky as hell! They should be in front of me in first position but instead they flail above my head. Instead of focusing on landing the jump, I need to focus more on where the hell my arms are during the jump. 
• Flip Jump - Do you see a pattern here? Backspin + Loop Jump =  prep for the Flip. Before attempting the Flip, however, he wanted me to just do the entry with the pick in and lifting of the free leg in the h position. We kind of alternated between this exercise and the loop jump so I can get a feel for how the Flip should be. And then....the Flip! It wasn't pretty but I was able to at least attempt some and I think I landed one or two sloppily. But guess what? They got done and there was no need for the harness. This is really just a confidence issue, I think, instead of a fear issue. I'll put this in writing now so I know I'll be held accountable for it: from here on out, no more of this chickening out stuff. I'm going to approach this jump with confidence and I will land it consistently! I CAN DO THIS!
• BO and BI Edges - I think, overall, he was pleased with how these have progressed. Of course, he still had to make some corrections to arm and head positions but these corrections are minor. Just polishing them up :) 
• Spirals - He commented on the progress I've made with these. Left leg spiral is still a bit weaker than the Right leg spiral but progress has been made. Huzzah! I'll keep working on this, though. I still have two more months before the test so I have plenty of time to get this to be as close to perfect as I can!