The Surgery
Post-surgery Week 1
Post-surgery Week 2
Post-surgery Week 3
Post-surgery Week 4
Post-surgery Week 5
Post-surgery Week 6
Post-surgery Week 7
Week 8
Day 50 (Thurs) – While I’m not close to running again, I
think I am getting closer to being healthy and whole. I find myself passing the days without having
to be attentive to how I move or how I walk:
I can’t quite take walking and moving for granted but it is closer.
I think that I am at the point where I won’t see a lot of
big or obvious changes going forward, everything will probably be subtle and quietly
sneak up on me. I know that I will have minor
aches and pains which will come and go, I’ll feel strong some days and weak
others, but that’s just kind of “life”.
Returning to a sense of normalcy is good in my mind, so long as I also
continue to learn and improve myself.
Everything I’m doing now is so close to how it felt while I
was marathon training, except the running part.
The hardest part to deal with is I feel so close to being healthy that I
want to run, just lean into it and feel the air rush around me. Of course I won’t do it: I may feel that I’m ready but I know my body
isn’t. I also won’t go against my
doctor’s orders just to fulfill my own desires.
Just because you “want” something doesn’t mean it’s something you
actually need or that it’s truly in your best interest. Better to be left wanting sometimes than to
cause more damage. I guess I’ve entered
the 40 days of frustration period of my recovery. Heh
Day 51 (Fri) – I had physical therapy today. You wouldn’t think I look forward to going to
these PT sessions but I do: It gives me
a measurable example of my progress in recovery. Today was another positive step forward; I
was given a few new exercises to do, we increased weight on a few of the existing
ones, and the physical therapist gave me an A.R.T. session (A.R.T. means Active
Release Therapy).
I picked up my sister after the sessions, since my PT facility
is only a few minutes from her house. We
went out to get some grocery shopping done and then have a nice lunch. It’s nice to get back to the old race
routines like this; an easy relaxing day before the coming stress.
I called it an early day after that due to the race
tomorrow, even walking it is going to be a big push for me.
Day 52 (Sat) – Today was the Operation Jack Elimination
Challenge and 3 hour Challenge. Though I
signed up for the 3 hour challenge I knew I wasn’t going to try walking for
that long; I didn’t even want to be out there that long.
I was able to walk for 1.5 hours (including a 10 minute rest
break) and racked up a little over 5 miles.
That’s my longest “single” walk since before my surgery. The real treat was that I finished with an
average pace of approximately 15:30 min/mi. I’m pleased with that especially with the
design of the race location.
The race was held at the Kellogg-Zaher Sport Park, around
the many soccer fields on a nice paved track for pedestrians and bicyclists. The track is laid out as a big loop, literally
up one side of the various fields and then down the other. The elevation difference is only 100 feet from
the top of the loop to the bottom but at 8 tenths of a mile for each up and
down it was a good challenge for me.
Thankfully, my ChiRunning lesson today really helped me walk
that long and far. The lesson was about
not using your legs to try powering through a walk or run; you should be using
your mind and gravity. I definitely
couldn’t have powered through today’s event, especially for such a long walk so
soon after getting off of crutches. I
let my lessons in ChiWalking help me establish and maintain good form, coupled
with the right amount of leaning to use gravity I was able to go much further
than I could have by trying to push through.
The Top of my right calf started to cramp this afternoon
after I got back home. I thought I’d had
enough water while walking and after but evidently not. It was much hotter this morning than I
thought while on the course, that and extended exercise really irked my
calves. Hopefully ice, stretching and
essential oils will deal with the muscle pain before it goes too far.
Day 53 (Sun) – I’m happy to say that there isn’t much to say
about today: I stayed home all day and
relaxed. The only things I did, other
than riding my exercise bike, were laundry and watch football.
I did give some extra attention to my cramping calves; they
seized up a lot overnight. I massaged
them with essential oils again, stretched them both out as much as I could, and
treated them with Heat and Ice. I also drank
a lot of electrolyte fluids as well as took electrolyte pills. It all helped a little over the course of the
day but man this stuff hurts.
Day 54 (Mon) – It’s difficult to appreciate how much (and
how little) 20 pounds is until you have to start counting water bottles and
salad mix for work, just to be sure you don’t exceed the limits your doctor has
set while you recover. Just so you know;
a 1 liter bottle of Seltzer Water (unopened) weighs 2.5 pounds.
While thinking about my pesky calf pain I realized today
that my left hip and leg feel very good right now. I haven’t been feeling any odd aches or
phantom pains, I’ve felt pretty normal.
I haven’t even felt a need to ice them, other than after the long walk
on Saturday and that’s just standard race practice for me. Saturday’s long walk didn’t leave me sore or
weak at all. My biggest problem right
now is the lingering cramping in my calves.
I’ll take that progress.
Day 55 (Tue) – I walked around my building quite a bit today,
in hopes of working the tightness out of my calves. I even did a backwards loop once to change
the muscle groups and use. The walks
felt good, except the darn calves. They
actually ache more at rest than they do while walking: They’re at their most
painful when I change from sitting to standing.
I wish the calf cramps would release and just go away; thankfully it
hasn’t affected my hip.
I’ve been using my ChiWalking techniques, even for short
talks, to ensure I don’t walk funny just to favor the sore muscles. At the moment the only thing that my calves
are interfering with is my ability to stretch out the left hip.
Day 56 (Wed) – Week 8 is behind me now, only 4 more to go
(Plus a few days). I feel mostly
positive and healthy after all this time.
Granted, I’ve had my days (I’ll have more, it’s just life) of being down
but they don’t define me or how I feel about this entire process. I’m getting stronger, I like that.
I feel like my hip needs to pop; no way I’ll do that though,
not at all comfortable with the idea.
I’m always analyzing how I feel and what makes me tick, it’s
a habit. I noticed this week that my
left foot is starting to go pigeon toed again.
I was pigeon toed as a child but I trained myself out of it during my
preteen/teen years. Now I’m wondering if
my femur defects caused me to be pigeon toed to start with. Twisted femurs are one reason people become
pigeon toed. While my femur wasn’t
twisted it was improperly shaped and therefore didn’t move correctly. I’m going to have to train that out of myself
again. Oh joy.
I had my body fat was measured at work today as part of a
general health assessment. Our insurance
company requires a basic physical (including blood work) every year so we can
maintain a “Discounted” enrollment rate.
We’re not stupid enough to believe that, the insurance company is
actually threatening to raise our rates if we don’t give them what they
want. The machine our medical clinic
uses reported that my body fat is currently at 5.6%. That was rather surprising: Humans need between
2 to 5% body fat to live and function, elite athletes are between 6 and 13%. My body fat measured low last year but I’d
been marathon training for almost 3 straight years, it wasn’t really
surprising. Now that I’ve been down for
essentially 8 months I expected it to be much higher: I need it to be a little higher, I’ve
literally no fat reserves to help my body fuel its own recovery. In the future, when I begin running and
training again, I’ll have to take this into account for my run fueling
strategy. I initially trained myself to
run using my fat reserves as fuel, I don’t have those anymore.
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