All danced out

After a shaky start, I managed to survive the whole dance weekend albeit with pacing, others looking out for me and pig headedness.

We had pretty hot weather and the building didn’t have air conditioning making for a pretty uncomfortable environment at times, but that didn’t stop everyone’s eagerness to learn new dances. I cant remember how many we had learnt before morning tea, possibly 4-5? That’s plenty for a brain to learn and then coordinate the body into dancing without messing up too much. They weren’t easy, involving chains, couples and various direction changing throughout. I absolutely loved the music and the atmosphere created by about 50 international folk dance enthusiasts.

Then after morning tea the crunch set in, increasing heat and lack of fresh air starting taking its toll on me. My head started hurting, I felt like the room was spinning, every time I moved it was worse and I felt like I was going to faint. People said I looked shocking and white as a sheet, not well at all. I went outside to get some fresh air, hoping to feel better because I was not happy about missing out. By lunch time I had our resident doc on my case lol, he had been informed by several people that I was not looking my best. Tony is lovely, he has shown interest in my ‘health issues’ since before I got rsd and has followed my progress along the journey always keen for updates whenever I am back home. He told me to eat lunch and then it would be wise to lay on the grass outside under the tree, the last thing we needed was me out to it on the floor and I couldn’t disagree with that! I ended up going home early afternoon which was a shame but I really didn’t feel well. I did go back for the Friday night party, stayed a couple of hours but only danced 2 dances.
Saturday went a lot better, we worked out that I probably should have had more than just water to drink (a few years ago a dr told me to drink powerade a sports replacement drink as I get low blood sugar and low blood pressure episodes very easily), so I took a bottle of full strength powerade and lasted much better although that afternoon I started feeling unwell again.
I went home part way through the afternoon session to rest up for the gala dinner and party as I really didn’t want to miss out on that and also wanted to be able to enjoy being there.
Saturday night was amazing, it was our groups 30th anniversary and rather special. How proud I felt to be part of it and able to dance, apart from a slight mishap near the end of the evening when I was rather tired, it was fun and happiness. Despite the pain during and after, it was worth every bit. How glad I was to be there and even stay till the end, I even made it for the Sunday morning revision sessions too!
I am pretty shattered now, I had such sensory overload that every part of my body was so hypersensitive I could barely stand clothes anyway. So, I’ve been taking it easy, letting my body recover because just as it is important to push, it is also important to give it time to recover but you cant wipe the smile from my face  A few months ago this would have been impossible but it just shows you what a good handle on pain management and a bit of hard work can do!