Rick Hansen, I'm Not

Today was a great day for independence.  My back is healing well and I'm feeling stronger and more energetic (I cautiously use the word "energetic" ... what I'm feeling may be better described as "non-comotose").  I spent more time today than yesterday bootin' around in the wheelchair.  Off to the coffee shop a few times, zipping around the ward, out to the garden for some outdoor physio homework, and generally getting around my room.  I'm starting to rejoin the world, and getting bored more easily.  It still doesn't take much to entertain me, but just sitting in my room is losing its lustre. I'm also trying to move back to my life philosophy that beds are for sleep and sex.  And, well, one of those is out,  so the more time moving around or being a lobby lizard (1) watching the world go by, the better.

Up until surgery day, I was fairly religious about doing three weights work-outs a week at the gym.  Lots of upper body and core strenghtening exercises, lots of flexibility training, and then the other days doing my share of cardio. I break a sweat when I work out. I push hard and there are lots of times when I feel it the next day. I have to shower. My clothes must be washed. None of these "brush my hair and change and go back to work workouts".  So, I came into this surgery thinking my upper body was in decent shape.  Not fitness model shape, but decent shape.

By mid-afternoon today I was wondering why my back, which has shown remarkable resistance to surgery after-effects, was achy.  Not fall down sore, but just achy.  They're weaning me off the steroids, but no change to any of the pain medication.  I get my doses of slow release 10mg Oxy (which in the Oxy world ... I might as well not be taking any). So what's up with the ache?

I'm outside this evening, sitting in my wheelchair, doing my obligatory physio homework (lift right knee, down, lift left knee, down, lather, rinse repeat), generally contemplating the peacefulness of life, and thinking about my day.  It was: Coffee run.  Second coffee run.  Visitor. Visitor. Lunch. Nap. Lobby Lizard. Visitor. Floor explore. ATM run. Dinner. Garden exercises.   Well now ... a whole lot more wheeling than yesterday or the day before.

We'll see what tomorrow brings, but I'm thinking it's bringing on a stiff back.  It's amazing how generic training trains you for nothing, but specific training trains you for only that, and you can't cross over. I was a decent enough runner, but that didn't make me a decent cyclist. I was a gym rat, but that doesn't make me Rick Hansen,

But give me a few days ...

(1) Lobby Lizard: officially defined by Urban Dictionary as someone who camps out in a hotel lobby hoping to meet a celebrity.  But in my case, someone who camps out in the lounge area by the elevators, just being a Nosy Parker, busy body and "old lady next door".  Keeping in the know of who is doing what, and socializing when I feel like it.