Pain 2
Mobility 5
I managed my first outing yesterday by car, Nicole drove me to the gym so I could spend a few minutes with my girls and all in all it went pretty well. I am stable on my feet mostly due to the fact that my leg was already improving before I went under the knife. That said, my stamina is in the toilet and I am not sure I could spend more than an hour on my feet at this point. Other things to note, the pain is very localized to the incision but can still hit the pain meter at a respectable 5 or 6 when I move awkwardly. However, when I am standing still like I do to write these posts there is barely a perception of pain other than a dull ache across my low back and my leg. I still don’t have any feeling in the medial side of my leg from mid thigh down to the ankle. The strength is coming back very slowly but it’s hard to push it at all when I have to be so cautious. These are the dangerous days though, the times when every day brings big improvements and my confidence in my ability starts to build again. These are the days for supreme caution.
On the technical side of things these posts aren’t making it to facebook and I am not sure why. Twitter is getting them no problem but for some reason the connection to facebook isn’t working. I managed to fix the issues with the gym facebook link, maybe I just need to update the plugin here too… After some digging around I find that Facebook has disabled direct posting from wordpress. Thanks jerks.
It’s still early, 1045am and I am thinking of trying to reach Tim’s today. It is about 2.2km away and after yesterday doing almost 1.5K I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility. It is day 6 and after surgery 2 I made that trip (albeit in the sunshine and warmth) on day 5 while still dealing with the remnants of drop foot which is probably the most scary thing I have ever encountered from these issues. Not being able to control my foot was terrifying to be honest and something I would never wish on anyone.
It is now 220pm, I went for a walk in the +4 balmy afternoon sun and although the terrain was a little iffy at times I managed a healthy 1.8km. I opted not to go to Tims although I walked very close by so I am firm in my conviction now that getting there tomorrow should be a piece of cake. The snow is melting which makes for a treacherous outing in places but once I can get out to Walmart to buy a new pair of winter boots then I will be all set. I know I should have probably done that before the surgery but it was the one thing left on my list. I will be visiting the gym again tonight, something that as a habit I need to reinforce even if I can’t actually work yet. There is nothing worse then allowing yourself to plateau or become complacent in your recovery and although I don’t mean to overdo things I also want to keep my foot planted gently on the gas pedal and ensure that my recovery and my stamina are increasing on the daily. My walk today was as fast as usual which is to say requires a calendar more than a stopwatch however I was not as fatigued. In the evening I decided to venture out to the gym to see my girls and see how my body would stand up to, well, standing up. I spent a couple of hours on my feet ambling around the gym talking and observing and at the time it felt OK. It was tiring I must say that, but it wasn’t too painful and moving around even across the uneven surfaces was just fine. My leg although weak in comparison to my other is still just fine for walking on and with the exception of sharp hip flexor pain occasionally when I stand, it seems to be working. Tomorrow morning will be the judge of whether or not this was a good idea. I am going on what happened last time and if I am right then tomorrow morning I should feel a little sore but just fine. Time will tell.