My Mended Heart

When I was writing my very first blog ("Why Roller Derby?"), I somehow forgot one of the reasons that I'm training for roller derby. I covered the areas of fitness, confidence, etc., but forgot to mention a really big reason; my heart works. About eight months ago, I learned that I had a congenital heart defect. I was born with a hole in my heart which was making my heart work harder and less efficiently than it should have. This led to enlargement of the chambers of my heart and, I learned, made cardio workouts more difficult.

Six months ago, I had a procedure to patch up the hole. A device was placed in my heart though a catheter in my groin. When the cardiologist went to place the device, he discovered that the hole was larger than was first believed (1.7 cm) and he had to use the largest size of the device we had picked out.

Today I went back for my six month check up. They injected saline with very small bubbles into my vein so that they could monitor with ultrasound whether any of the bubbles could get past the device, which would indicate that the blood can flow backwards through the chambers of my heart. This backwards blood flow causes extra strain and can lead to enlargement of the heart. The backwards blood flow is suspected to be tied with certain kinds of migraines.

Before injecting the bubbles, the doctor told me that it's quite common for some bubbles to get through, and would not be unexpected considering the size of my defect. The bubbles were injected, and not a single one crossed over into the other chamber! Not only that, but the chambers of my heart have returned to a normal size. The doctor seemed to be just as excited about the result as I was. He said he might ask me to come in for additional studies just to help out with his research on these kinds of repairs (which I would gladly do--he's an incredible doctor and I'm very grateful for his care).

I told him about my decrease in migraines and improvement in fitness (another benefit of a fixed up heart). I told him that I was training for roller derby and had stopped taking blood thinners because the bruises would have been ridiculous. He agreed with my decision to stop blood thinners and was excited to hear about my roller derby endeavors. He said he loves to see the outcome of his work and asked for a ticket to a bout when I'm ready to start playing for real (I'll totally get him one). He repeated what he had told me at my three month check up:

"Don't hold back--go all out!"

And I will. Because I can.

Betty Boot Camp - Day 1

I can barely sit on my chair as I write this.  I can also barely stand up.  I'm sore, and I know tomorrow will be a new version of sore.

On Saturday, my husband and I went to the last bout of the season.  It was awesome!  The place was packed, my team was down for the first half, and then brought an amazing comeback!  My husband lost his voice from cheering so loud.  I brought my camera and had fun shooting, but realized later when looking through my photos that shooting moving targets in low light...well as fun as it was, not many of my photos were in focus.

Tonight was my very first practice on skates.  I've been skating around my house, a couple of times at a rink, and once on a bike path for 15 minutes before I realized that the longer I skated, the further I would have to skate to return to my car.  And I really was determined not to break anything before my first practice.  I wanted to learn to fall first.

And fall I did.  Quite a few times on purpose, a few times less purposefully.

We started out with butt cheek falls.  Twenty falls on each cheek for a total of 40 falls.  It's not so bad when you land on the squishy part of the butt, but I took two falls on the less squishy part.  At least it was once on each side, so I'm balanced.

Then we moved to single knee falls.  Think lunges.  On wheels.  This was the part where I went from thinking "I'm a badass in the most awesome shape of my life" to "uh oh."  I seriously need to work on strengthening my thighs, particularly my quads.  I'll get right on that, when I can walk again.

Then double knee falls.  It's more of a slide, like a rock star would do while playing a mean riff on the guitar.  I could do those alright.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I switched out my wheels.  I had been using "multipurpose" wheels that supposedly can be used both on the track as well as outside.  I learned that they are less than mediocre for both situations, so I borrowed some wheels from a girl who is off her skates for a while due to injury.  Yikes!  Real wheels are much slicker than what I was using, and I "practiced" a few more butt cheek falls.

Then we did some core strengthening exercises.  This is where I thought I'd shine.  I've been doing Pilates on a somewhat regular basis.  I was proud of my core strength.  Until I tried doing the same move with skates on my feet.  Skates are heavy!  And suddenly I was less proud of my core strength.  I'll be working on that too, just not tonight.

Overall, I'm happy with practice.  I survived without breaking anything.  I'd had a little fantasy about going out there and nailing all the moves on the first try, but that would have been too easy.  When that fantasy bubble burst, I created a new fantasy.  Now my fantasy is that I'm the girl who tries SO HARD that no matter how much I screw up, I still impress with my determination. 

The extra bonus of it all is that for two hours, I wasn't anxious.  I've been so anxious lately about work, personal life, pretty much everything, that my entire everything feels tense.  Tonight, I was completely focused on falling and not falling, and while I was on the track, didn't think once about my stress off the track.