My World is Changing, Are You Coming With?

My whole life I have had this bizarre and unsettling pattern of health where things suddenly crop up, like overnight, without any warning or seeming link to anything else that has been going on. It’s always been a little disheartening, as you feel like you’ve recovered from the last thing and you literally can wake up in pain from the next thing — then you need to go and investigate this next thing.

It’s exhausting.

But some health issues don’t come up overnight. Some issues creep up over time. You can see them coming.

In my last blog post I wrote about how I had found a physiotherapist who was going to help me possibly return to dance.

A few days later I traveled 9 hrs return by car to a specialist where I was diagnosed with restrictive lung disease. I was shown the results of my lung function tests, which show moderately impaired function.

It’s not that I saw lung disease coming. That part was a little shocking to hear. And seeing the results of my lungs compared with a healthy set of lungs was a little disturbing (read “a lot”), but I did know that something was up.

I started noticing a change back in December. Just very slightly. I thought it might be a flare in my asthma (it is not). From there, I increasingly felt tighter in my chest faster, during ballet classes, when I walked anywhere etc. etc. Then over the past 3 months it has just gotten worse and worse. I kept pushing myself for a while, until I couldn’t. The GP tried steroids and high doses of ventolin, but when those didn’t improve me much, he finally referred me to a specialist.

Some nights I would go to sleep asking my husband to please check on me through the night, because I just felt like I could easily stop breathing in my sleep. I am more relaxed about it now, I think because I’ve been experiencing it for a while, I just trust that it won’t get that bad. But I do have to watch how hard I push myself as it is sometimes pretty scary when I go too far.

At the moment it’s like this: If I do something like put the dinner on to cook AND pack away the clean dishes, I then need to sit down to recover my breath and I cannot talk for a little while as it’s hard to regulate your breathing while talking. After about 10 minutes I usually feel okay enough to talk again.

I am now waiting to see a new specialist for further testing to try and find the cause. I have everything crossed that we find the cause is something that can be reversed or improved upon.

I also found out that what I thought were 2 more hernias in my abdomen are actually 1 large one. Ugh. No wonder I have been in so much pain! Anyway, will need to have those repaired sooner rather than later, and meanwhile I am pretty restricted in the movements I can do without causing immense pain.

So, now that those things are out of the way, I’d like to share something with you all. I have been thinking, like, a LOT, recently. I have missed writing for myself and interacting with my blog friends. I have missed feeling inspired to write. And I have struggled with being in so much discomfort, not knowing what next week holds for me, and at the same time dealing with the feelings I get when I come on to try to write something on Bush Ballerina. Because right now, ballet isn’t my thing. And I’m kind of hurt by the reminder.

I recently thought about the idea of dropping Bush Ballerina altogether but it didn’t feel right. I haven’t given up on the idea of dancing. But at the same time, it’s also not at all what my focus is on right now.

My focus has shifted pretty radically. I seem to be in what us EDSers call ‘a major health flare’ where a lot of my body’s bits are just chucking tantrums left, right and center. I also have a few health issues that have come up that I am learning may not go away. And whilst that’s not an easy thing to accept, it is a pretty blunt kick up the backside, to get my priorities right.

Right now, my primary focus is on health.

But I don’t want to stop communicating with all my beautiful blogger friends. ‘Cause I loves you all! 🙂 I also like the mental clarity I get from writing my thoughts down in blog form.

Sooooooooo, after much thinking about it, and a little teariness 😥 I have decided to keep blogging here but make some changes. The ballerina part is not relevant now (more sobs 😥 ), so I will be changing the name and the header. And I suppose the biggest change will be my content. To be honest, I’m not sure how my content will play out. I’m mostly interested in writing about the positive things I find helpful to my health (like the aromatherapy I have started using for instance) and just my observations on what works and what doesn’t.

I will write updates on my health stuff, and I’m sure there will be blog posts that are me writing the raw stuff out, and I’m okay with that as that stuff is real, and real is important. But I don’t want that to bog the blog down. I am more interested in finding answers and keys to unlocking positive health change for myself. And I want to write about all the other awesome stuff that I do in my life, too! 🙂

I don’t really know how it’s all going to unfold from here. But this is sort of a new blogging path and I’m really glad that I have finally chosen to take it. I’d love all of my fans/friends/followers to come along for this next part of the journey, but I understand if some of you feel the end for us is here.

So, like a choose your own adventure book, you have a choice:

A) Cut the ropes that bind us and sail off into the sunset on your own, knowing we shall always remember the good times we had, or…

B) Stick around,and find out if there was more to “cut the ropes that bind us” than a cute metaphor 😉 (Just jokes. I’m not into ropes, but I would love you to stay! 😀 )

For those who are leaving, I wish you every happiness and thanks for travelling with me this far.

For everyone who is hanging around for the next part of the journey, welcome aboard — let’s go!