BAND

Drum corps is hard. Here are the stats to prove it.

Scott (a member of Bucs mello line with me) wore a heart rate monitor for our final run through yesterday afternoon. The results? His max heart rate was 189 bpm and his average was 172 bpm throughout the show. To put this in perspective, Scott frequently runs marathons and 5K's. His average heart rate for a 22 minute 5K run is 172 bpm. We reach that average in a 12 minute show.

I'm just gonna say it...holy shit.

Speaking of drum corps being difficult, we also put in a choreography section in the ballad during which I'm lifted and then do a sommersault in the air and roll onto the ground. Pretty sweet and pretty freaky. Here's some pictures from the weekend (first ones of the new visual...others are just awesome):

First Day of Summer

I think I would consider today to be my first official day of summer...I'm not at work today. But that's only because I was in the hospital yesterday.

This weekend was the first really hot weekend of Bucs. Everyone got naked (yay working on my tan!) and smelled nasty within 15 minutes of practice. On Saturday after lunch, I started feeling really sick. Light-headed...dizzy...terrible stomach pain...but I pushed through the day. It was miserable but at the end of it all I was proud of myself that I didn't sit out.

Then yesterday morning I woke up with the same stomach pain. Tried to eat some eggs for breakfast, had two bites and felt like I was gonna be sick, and so just settled on having a banana. Got to practice and within half an hour I was feeling super sick again. But I pushed through and at 12:30 we had a quick snack break (only about 20 minutes). I tried to eat some apple slices but my stomach didn't want any of it...it hurt to eat, it hurt to drink. So by the time 2:00 came around, I was incredibly malnourished and dehydrated but still pushing through rehearsal cause I didn't wanna sit out.

WELL...then we started working on Part 4. The mellos have this awesome feature and we stand on ladders and play it (which is kinda freaky but I'm sure will look fantastic). On the first rep I climbed up, got situated, started playing the feature, and then everything started going black. I stopped playing and just kinda stood until the rep was finished. When it was over, I looked over at Liz and told her I thought I was gonna faint. She yelled for one of the techs to grab my horn from me and as I was on my way climbing down I blacked out. When I woke up I was on the ground hyperventilating with techs all around me putting ice cold washcloths all over my body to calm me down.

After about 15 minutes I still felt sick and my body was completely numb so they took me to the hospital. I was wheelchaired inside, hooked up to a bunch of machines (my blood pressure was super low), and then had a bunch of tests performed on my body. I got an IV and some drugs to help my stomach and my head and I was feeling better for a bit. Then someone came in to check my blood pressure. They took the numbers when I was sitting up, lying down, and standing up and apparently my numbers were still bad. After that I got super nauseous and had to get a second IV that was double the dose of the first one.

Finally, after 5 hours of being in the hospital, I was able to go home. I wanted to go into work today but mom thought it was best that I stay home and get some rest, which is probably the smartest thing to do.

So here I am...posting for the first time in weeks because it's been so long since I've had any free time. Drum corps is still totally awesome and I love it...I'm just really hoping I don't get weird stomach pain (they could never figure out what it was exactly) every single weekend.

One positive that came out of the trip to the hospital though is that I found out I'm in FANTASTIC shape! As in my resting heart rate is lower than average because of all the intense exercise I've been doing with drum corps. My heart is incredibly efficient. Yay participating in an activity that's pretty much like running for 12 hours a day!