If I Can Never Lift My Leg Higher Than My Hip… Am I No Longer a Dancer?

Much of the dance world would say yes

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If I can never lift my leg higher than my hip… am I no longer a dancer?

Much of the dance world would say yes. Not the studios, and “rec students”, and local dreamers that are the backbones of it all… but that 1%. That very small percent of the dance industry who “makes it” enough to be told by their loved ones they’re not making it enough.

This was the day after having a new injection deep in the joint of my ‘sits bone’.

My left ‘sitting bone’ has made the last year l and half feel like utter hell and I keep writing dumb sh*t like: “You can’t have a “rocking chair era” if you can’t sit” but also… you can’t.

When I hurt too bad from standing or walking, I can’t find comfort in a wheelchair as one might assume, because pressure on my hip is even worse that way. So… what do I do? (But really, please someone tell me. Someone. What do I do?)

We still don’t know why this is happening. I hate being repetitive, but lest you need a recap or incase my frequent vagaries are annoying, here’s a vaguely annoying recap that’s, indeed, receptive:

I never had the pain before (ever) until an SI fusion that went poorly brought it on straightaway, and I gained a pain in my “hip”, in addition to the lower back pain I had the surgery FOR in the first place. A small fracture was later detected (and healed) and we have tried to revise it and solve the mystery… but Velma is yet to arrive.

I have a very high pain tolerance (take my word for it but it’s a problematic concept out the gate that I have to say that as often as I do as if a brand seared into my flesh to say: “Believe This One”) but it doesn’t matter. If you can’t sit, you can’t fit in with friends in wheelchairs and you can fit in with friends who aren’t and… I am too new to this to know what to even do.

My whole left side can be a problem- the nerves in my hands, a “heart attack” like pain squeeze I feel often in my shoulder, that whole damn leg - and that’s just sort of The Way It Is these last few years, with increasing frequency. I wish there were a med or infusion or magical Matrix pill to help even a little, but steroids rarely work for me and my doctor is worried about them, and I’m on all the Gabas and the Pentins.

We have operated on my left leg and every time: something IS wrong. Either the nerve is pinched in my lower back or the leg itself. But this time, I’m saying something is wrong and we can’t figure out why I was given this hip pain that won’t go away except that I need a DeLorean before the surgery ever happened.

I’ve been spoiled and normally when I say something is wrong, it is. And it’s really that simple. Injections have never worked for me, but we hoped this diagnostic style one would. Unfortunately, it didn’t (diagnose a tendinitis in that area form the botched surgery) and so the pain echoes on.

But as for the dancing? I have a fused lower back, two fused SI joints, and more bolts and screws and cages then I know what to do with and when I lift my leg higher than my hip: my back is going to go out. On the left side, I’m still not even sure if it ever will be able to “fully”. Will I try when it’s safe? Yes. Will I make sure I don’t let statistics or warning define what I at least TRY for? (Once cleared). Of course.

But IF I can’t get my leg above 90 for the rest of my life and this is as “good as it gets”… Will I ever be good enough for dance? Even after all I’ve given it?

I don’t have an answer.

…That’s why I’m asking.

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