Out of town

Soon we will be heading out of town for our first trial of wearing the brace on a flight.

The plan is to have it in a carry-on bag through security, then Dancer Girl will put it on to board the plane (so we don't have too many carry on items) and see how it goes in flight.

She plans to bring a small pillow to help with positioning on the flight but if the seats prove to be unbearably uncomfortable she may opt to take the brace off.  As long as she wears it the rest of the day she could get away with not wearing it on our flights.  But, wearing it in flight will give her some relief time from it when we first arrive at our destination.

We are flying to visit family so the initial moments of arrival will involve plenty of greetings and lots of hugging which will be nicer for Dancer Girl if she is not in the brace.  (See our "Can I have a Real Hug?" post).

We will update the blog on our return - (there will be fewer posts for a couple of weeks while we are away unless we get some good computer access time).

Troublesome chairs

Dancer Girl is back from camp.  Back from her week off from the brace.  It was probably the best week at camp she has had yet and I am so happy it worked out that way.

Putting the brace back on today was rough.

But she did it.

She had it off all week so we decided to have her wear it to church this morning.  (She has rarely had to wear it to church because we can usually take that time out of the 6 hours she can have off a day).

We ran into problems with the chairs.  They look a bit like the ones in the photo.  At first glance it would seem OK because they are padded.

               The problem was the gap at the top.

Dancer Girls' brace hits right in that gap. So when she leans back her brace gets wedged in there and pushes it into uncomfortable positions.  She was in a fair amount pain just sitting.

I eventually figured out to put my arm around her in between her back & the chair right at the point of the gap to prevent the brace from slipping in, but that was not entirely comfortable for me.  Now my arm was being squeezed by the brace and the chair!  It seemed a small thing though compared to wearing a brace so we went with it.

Still, it makes the idea of wearing the brace to church a bit more difficult unless we can figure out a solution that doesn't draw too much attention to her - maybe bring a pillow or find a different chair.

Who knew a simple chair could cause so much pain?

Going Solo

Dancer Girl has decided she would like to perform a solo dance at competition next year.  We are thrilled as this is a big step of confidence for her.  The studio director is very encouraging and is happy to help her reach this goal and will be working with her on the routine.

She was wanting to choose a song from her scoliosis playlist (see our Songs of Hope and Encouragement post) and is leaning towards a contemporary/lyrical style dance.  While she had a few top choices she wasn't quite feeling the pull toward any of them for a routine right now.

Then we found it...

             an acoustic version of Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" (great song!)
             performed by Boyce Avenue featuring Diamond White (terrific arrangement).

You can see their youtube video version by clicking here.

The song is about reaching out and grabbing opportunities, making the most of the rest of your life, writing your own story, taking chances and pushing yourself, finding hope... that all resonated with Dancer Girl and she had found her song!

I can't wait to see how the dance unfolds!!

* * * * * * * *

If anyone is wondering what Dancer Girl's short list was for solo songs before we found this version of "Unwritten" it included:

Britt Nicole's "Still That Girl"
Britt Nicole's "The Sun Is Rising"
Carly Rose Sonenclar's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
Meredith Andrews' "You're Not Alone"

At camp without the Boston brace

Dancer Girl is away at camp in New Hampshire this week WITHOUT HER BRACE!

She is thrilled to get the break from it for a few days and be able to fully enjoy the camp experience.

Her back doctor said that because the correction in the brace is so significant (50%!) he thought she could go without it for the week.

The activities at camp would make it hard to wear much during the day anyway and nights are short so it would be good for her to get some real sleep if possible. That hasn't been happening consistently in the brace and camp beds are not going to make it any easier!

She was thrilled to meet her counselor who is also tall - "finally I am not taller than my counselor"! - and who understands the frustrations of being the tallest in the group.

It gets tiring to hear people exclaim "you are so tall!" everywhere you go.  Not that people mean anything negative by it, it is just an observation and it is true, but it gets tiring nonetheless.

The counselor also seemed to have an understanding of scoliosis. It wasn't clear to me at drop-off if she has dealt with it herself or is just aware of it on some level but still, this was encouraging for Dancer Girl too.

We are looking forward to hearing how camp week went when we pick her up on Saturday and are praying that her back will not cause her too much pain during her time there.

Sunburns and the brace

Today Dancer Girl was at the beach for most of the day with the youth group.  It was lots of fun but she came home with a horrible sunburn covering a big percentage of her body.  She is literally glowing and radiating heat as she sits covered with aloe vera and wet cloths all over to cool herself down.

Painful lesson learned on the need to reapply sunscreen at the beach...

She can hardly have anything touch her skin so I can't see how we can expect her to wear her brace to bed tonight.  And possibly not for most of tomorrow...

On Vacation With a Boston Brace

Our family recently spent a week in a cabin on a lake up in New Hampshire.  It was wonderfully relaxing with no set schedule.  We spent the days in canoes & kayaks or on inflatable rafts in the water. A few tried some swimming but the water was COLD!

We rode our bikes, found some great ice cream, and took a day trip to Gunstock Mountain to take in their high ropes course and zip lines. We had too many s'mores for too many nights in a row.

The hard part was figuring out how the brace fit into all of this activity.

Because things changed day to day, hour to hour, Dancer Girl was in & out of it much more than usual which got tiring for her emotionally.

She also found it very difficult to sleep on the beds in the cabin while wearing the brace even though we brought some of her extra pillows, and her bedroom was hot.

While we tried to keep it on as much as possible I found it harder to enforce on vacation and we almost certainly never reached the 18 hour per day goal.

It was our first week of summer vacation at the time and so it was hard to figure out a new routine. Now I think we have settled into one, more or less, but that will change as camps and vacations come up over the next few weeks.

For this vacation we drove to our destination but there is a trip involving a flight coming up at the end of the summer.  Travel by air with the brace will be a new adventure...