Finally have a date for surgery - September 2nd. Six weeks away and twelve weeks after this all started.
But wait, it gets better.
I received a folder of information on what to do pre and post-op. It said no physical activity beyond walking until the post-operative exam which is already scheduled for six weeks after surgery in mid October.
So assuming I follow that guideline and further assuming I can't ride between now and when I have surgery it'd be just about five months of no riding.
As I write this, my back is still hurting, my left hamstring and calf are burning and three toes on my left foot are tingling/numb so the miracle cure I've been waiting for hasn't arrived yet.
But screw it, I'm going to start riding again anyway. I've done a couple of short rides (less than 30 minutes) on the trainer so far. One on a regular bike and one on a recumbent. There was no perceptible difference between the two in how I felt afterwards so I don't know whether my best strategy is to pick one and ride it "to failure" (or hopefully, not) or alternate between the two. I've got both of them set up on trainers so I can switch easily. Not sure how to decide.
I'm not going to be going for any PR's or hard efforts. Just easy spinning with gradually increasing duration. I'll probably start off at 30 minutes to an hour and see how it goes.
It's been really hard to get up in the morning with nothing to look forward to. You can only read or do non-physical chores so much and after a few weeks of that the little tasks are all done. I've been gradually doing more physical chores and I have to say it's not gone well. I really hurt after and I usually pay for it for a couple of days.
I'm not doing anything overtly strenuous, things like sitting on the mower cutting the grass, packing bikes I've been selling, etc. Grass cutting involves a fair amount of bouncing around and twisting (it's hilly) and other things necessitate a lot of bending. But I've been doing them anyway just out of boredom.
And here's the ironic bit.
Marcia and I are long time motorcyclists. For years our vacations were long motorcycle trips and we've covered all of North America on the motorcycle. Our longest trip was 6 weeks, 18K miles. We bought a new motorcycle in August 1999 and by that November it had 35K miles on it.
We bought our current motorcycle in 2012. It's got 9K miles on it.
And randonneuring is totally to blame. Since I started doing long brevets I've been reluctant to take more than a week off to go on a motorcycle trip. On our trips we generally hit every brew pub between here and there and a week of not riding, eating pub food and swilling beer isn't exactly the right training program for riding a 1200K.
But now, I can't ride a bicycle. It'd be the perfect time to take an extended trip and would give me (us) something to do that we both enjoy doing. There'd be some amount of risk of hurting my back managing a heavy motorcycle (two up, with luggage the motorcycle weighs about 1000 pounds) but like most things riding a motorcycle is technique rather than strength. There are very small women who ride big motorcycles and I've been riding them my whole life (I learned to "drive" on a motorcycle).
Except for that coronavirus thing. Travel is definitely out.
Ironic no?
