The frustrations...

Oh the joys of being an aerial artist! Once again we've had a superkeen group of people wanting me and my girls to do a routine for a national conference. Just when we thought it would happen the organisers realised what we were going to do and came back asking us to get insurance. This is really difficult as the two girls I have trained to perform with me are under the age of 18, which means they can't get insurance. I asked my insurance broker to do some inquiries to find resonable (price wise) insurance cover. He came back to say everyone balked when they found out what it was for and quoted me for thousands!

Fortunately through my circus contacts in Melbourne I have been able to find a broker that is specifically for circus performers. This has brought the cost down substancially to two hundred. Much more reasonable! But it doesn't include cover for the girls as again, they don't provide cover for underage performers. Will have to do some more investigating.

On another topic, the organisation I teach and train through up in Darwin have asked me to take on another two classes to cater for the interest, this will include adults. Myself and the other tutor have both been explicit saying we only want to dedicate one night a week (in which we currently have two successive classes on) to teaching as we both still want to train and have other things on during the week. The problem with this organisation is they have no experience with aerial circus arts. They are only interested in expanding the number of teaching opportunities without considering the implications. They even suggested that we could teach during the one night a week we've dedicated to training ourselves! We'll stay firm in our decision though, we both consider ourselves as artists before teachers so our priorities will not change!

Another new toy

I finally did it, I bought a brand new car! It's a 2008 Mitshubishi Lancer ES manual sedan. I never thought I'd buy a new car mostly because of how quickly it's value depreciates, but after much consideration I figured this car actually was a good purchase with the extras included plus a 10 year warranty.

The hard thing is having to let my old car go. It's been such a good car, 100% reliable, taking me through flood waters and up and down the Stuart Highway across the NT and interstate for work and uni. It never complained and soldiered on. If it were human it'd probably be wondering what it did wrong. It's sitting in the spare car park at the moment right next to the new car and I feel guilty every time I see it waiting there. The only reason I got the new car is because I figured I can afford an upgrade and my old car was about to hit 300,000kms - I thought it was timely to find a new owner.

One of my collegues who's a committed bike commuter was the only person who raised her eyebrows when I mentioned the proposed new purchase, mostly because I live and work in the city and I ride to work. I think she's worried I'm going to want to drive to work again. But I'm still excited about the new bike so I'll be keen on riding to work for a while longer.

So long since my last blog!

There's just been so much happening I completely forgot about my blogging space. I think I was in the zone when I was writing regularly since I had so much to report on regarding circus.

Anyway I've got something new in my life - triathlon! It's fantastic. Well I haven't actually competed in one yet but I'm spending a fair bit of time training. At the moment I'm aiming for sprint distance: 750m swim/20km ride/5km run. I haven't been able to work too solidly on the run bit as I've only just reached the point where my foot fracture is supposedly healed enough for me to do any impact activity like road running.

So this is my new toy - an Avanti Corsa road bike and I love it! It makes such a difference to ride a bike designed to go fast. I'm a complete biking convert - I even spend my spare time checking out the bike parts websites, what a nerd!

So stay tuned for both circus and tri updates. I did my first aerial circus training for the year tonight and it made me realise just how conditioned one needs to be to do this stuff! I resume aerial circus teaching tomorrow night. After training tonight it makes me think I should take it easy on my poor students!

Almost back to normal

This is how my foot looks now. It's slightly deformed at the fracture site as it's raised and rounded (shown here where my hand is holding). I thought it was swelling but it's still quite raised.

Last week I finally starting walking normally. I usually walk down the city to buy my lunch and one day I found I was able to transfer weight across my full step. It was such a great moment for me to be able to walk normally again. I had the biggest grin on my face - I must have looked as though I was up to mischief as I walked down the mall. It was a mixture of relief and excitment. I had read about complications with this type of fracture and people having ongoing issues and pain on walking. But now I'm virtually pain-free. I don't have to walk behind everyone anymore and have people actually overtake me, I'm back to being the one that does the overtaking!

I've been training for two weeks now and tonight I attempted a full length routine, I'm definately out of shape. It's amazing just how quickly the body deconditions! I think I only have a few more weeks that I can use the 'foot' as an excuse with my students for not being as fit as I was two months ago.

Back in training

Yes! It was good news, my fracture was well on the way to healing and I was allowed to start walking. My calf and thigh was pretty wasted and my ankle was stiff. That was one week and 6 days ago. Walking was very difficult at first but taking those first steps without my crutches gave me such a good feeling. It took me a few days to get over my instinctual reaction of reaching for my crutches to get up and walk around. Right now I've still got a slight limp but my walking has improved heaps and seems to get better everyday. I've been warned to hold of the full return to activity for another 4 weeks. I'm even doing the annual Pedometer Challenge and I can see how my steps over the days have progressively increased as I've improved.

So I've started back at circus again, training two nights a week and teaching two nights a week. I'm just about to head off to do some laps in the pool. I haven't exactly got a show to train for at the moment but things tend to pop up without much warning so it's good to keep fit and conditioned so that I'm prepared for anything!

One week, one day to go!

I realized today that if all goes well I can start training again next week!, I’m so excited – it’s been so hard to take a break from training for the last few weeks.

Last week I had to travel to Alice Springs for a workshop. I spoke with a friend a few days earlier who suggested I go back to hospital to get the cast adjusted so I could travel. To be honest the cast was so tight my foot and toes would swell up after about 20 minutes of having it hanging down and the thought of a 2 hour flight plus cabin pressure made me worry. At the hospital the plaster technician split the cast down both sides and crepe bandaged it closed.

At the airport on Tuesday the check in crew said it was good that I had it done as they might not have let me fly, especially if it was a newer fracture. They were going to insist on making me use a wheelchair and even pulled one out for me. But I insisted on using my crutches. I had an assistant stand by me when I used the stairs to get down to the tarmac and then up to the plane. I even had a buggy ride to get to the plane. The crew, included the pilot who was watching, commented that they were impressed at my stair climbing technique – hopefully they can suggest this to their other passengers who need to use crutches. Unfortunately my request when making the booking to get a front row seat was not considered when it came to checking in. Apparently they are reserved for their ‘frequent flyers’ so I was put somewhere in the middle. The flight crew found me a spare seat though so I was able to put my foot up in the end. They were so helpful offering me pillows, blankets, drinks etc. As I was cruising back to Darwin Airport in the buggy one of the passengers we passed commented maybe he should ‘get himself one of those (my cast)’ so that he could get the special treatment too!

The show casualty

Well it's pretty obvious what's happened here!

The shows were excellent and the feedback was overwhelming. I loved performing in the Entertainment Centre, it was such a great experience to do things professionally. The three shows happened pretty much flawlessly (I'll get to my injury) and everyone finished feeling like all the hard work paid off - plus some! We had one night of rehearsal in the venue and I had my acts plus supervision of the trapeze girls to worry about.

On rehearsal night the aerial acts were left out as we ran out of time. I was pretty peeved and so were the trapeze girls - seven hours of waiting around for nothing! So on opening night we had an opportunity for a run through of our act - it had to be run through regardless as the technical side of the act (stage light & sound) had to be organised. It happened about an hour before the first show went on and we were super rushed through. So much so that the ground mats for a tumbling act was not set up correctly - during the show I have a moment when I have to run across them. But my foot slipped through either a crack or just off a double stacked mat (I can't remember exactly) and it twisted and I got up on it. I keeled over in pain but stood up to try to finish the act - no good, something wasn't right! My foot blew up immediately, we strapped and iced it straight away as I thought it was a blown tendon. I couldn't believe my bad luck as I only had an hour to deal with it before the shows started!

But I did all the shows, limping backstage and full weight bearing during my acts as I didn't want the audience to see I was injured. People who noticed the strapping thought I had it on there for support. After the two days of shows I presented to the hospital, was xrayed and told it was a fractured base of 5th metatarsal (long bone of the foot near the ankle). Everyone was surprised I had performed on it - so was I, it never even occured to me that it could be broken! Thankfully it was a nice clean break and hadn't displaced.

Treatment is a cast on for 6 weeks, non-weight bearing and elevated as much as possible. I'm halfway through, 3 weeks and one day to go! The hardest things for me is not being able to train and relying on everyone to give me a lift to get around. I'm getting the hang of these crutches and have been able to cut my showering/dressing time from 60 minutes to half and hour. I desperately wanted it off within a day of having it on but after 3 weeks I've been talked into realising it's best I keep it on!