We were a little eager yesterday. Michellie headed to school in the afternoon and took the bus home. Then, we started on the beginnings of her cardiovascular workouts. She asked about doing aerobics. Who would have thought the 90's would be so important. When we moved, I threw out all of my aerobic homemade tapes thinking I would never have a use for them again. There must have been about 30 all together. Well, we began with The Star (for those of you who know my latest work), only to discover that having not moved for 3 months, the port a cath was limiting. Michellie's upper body was so used to being in a collapsed state from all of the chemo and lying around, that she could not reach her arms overhead and spread open her chest. We had to improvise on turning of the spine as well for the upper part of the back. This presented a few tears and then some improvising. Then we progressed to some aerobics to Happy Feet. She was laughing at me as I showed her some of the step aerobic choreography and stuff. We goofed around and focused on getting her heart rate up and we did accomplish this. Finally, we put the tap shoes on. Michellie thought she would have outgrown her shoes, but at 15 she seems to have hit her size. Our sounds were pretty pathetic after almost 9 months without moving our feet this way. We did warmups, pullbacks, paddle and rolls, some wings and some time steps. We did a lot of giggling and groaning as we missed sounds, but as always, Michellie was quick to pick up anything I threw at her. It was very liberating to find our sounds. Afterwards we stretched and Michellie finally felt like she had warmed up. Within minutes she was exhausted. Both of us had severely underestimated her stamina and strength. Sadly, it wasn't a heavy duty workout, but a pretty gentle one. We have a long way to go to find her strength again. The evening was pretty low key after this as she rested.
Today was a slow day. Michellie was still very tired and really had no energy to do much. Her appetite has backed off, so we have to keep going at getting her try more. Eggs are no longer a favorite, she doesn't like red or yellow peppers any more, but cheese is still a favorite! Oh, how those chemicals can wreak havoc on the body!
This afternoon we relaxed and put on White Nights. This is my all time favorite movie, and in no time David joined us too. Mikhail and Gregory together - unbelieveable history made by that movie. Incidently, it was made in 1985. I know many of the Dance Debut dancers are familiar with the piroette scene - 1 ruble, 1 piroette, 11 rubles, 11 piroettes - brilliant. Anyway, this reminded me of how Michellie was named, and I am sure there are many reading this who do not know, so I will tell.
Michellie's name was chosed from a long distance runner named Michellie Jones from New Zealand and a triathlete. She was running in a race, and her name flashed across the screen on the television. I wondered who would name their kid "Mishelley" and David quickly corrected me to say it is "Mikaylee". Being that we were into our Scottish roots with a vengeance and participating in lots of ceilidhs or "kaylees", it seemed fitting. Also, we had named MacKenzie, MacKenzie Davis Greenwell, as Davis meant son of David. With Michellie, the spelling was close to mine, but unique and original (Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman was a popular television program at the time and her first name was Mikayla and that was the popular name for the decade). Michellie was 2 weeks over due and when I went to the doctor she thought we should wait a few more days before we did anything. But, I had purchased tickets to see Mikhail Baryshnikov on the Friday and this was Monday. I had bought a whole seasons worth of Alberta Ballet Tickets just to make sure I was able to get those tickets. I didn't want to miss the show. So, we insisted (I should probably say "I" here) that today was the day. The doctor sent us off to the hospital. Michellie was born 3 hours later around 4 in the afternoon. David and I made it to see Mikhail on Friday, and Grandma Yvonne drove us with Michellie and waited with her so that I could nurse her as soon as the show was over. Many people asked if Michellie was named after Mikhail - which we had not even considered. However, that is a bit of an honor, I think, to have such an inspirational and talented namesake as Mikhail, and the talents of Michellie Jones as well.
So, our Michellie has a bit of a road ahead to gain her strength and endurance and find her own voice with her body. To do some quiet healing today, we did play with a new program I built last week called the Inner Smile. I brought Michellie through a visualization that comes from Qi Gong where you smile upon the organs in the body and bring light and love to each of them. Once I finished talking her through this, I realized that I will have to put this dialogue into the program for others to experience. It is really incredible. Some of my friends have their own personal body blessings that they do, and this is similar. I thank them for the inspiration for this also. If you have any stories to share, please feel free to post. We all can learn so much from each other. Namasthe (and I am told by my close healing partner that this is the best way to spell this).
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