It's been rather a bad week and to be honest I don't know why. I know from previous experience that recovery from surgery is non-linear - you have a few good days then a few bad days for no apparent reason.
Having said that, this is still mysterious. Being as critical a grader as I can be, I'd say my performance as a patient has been B+/A-. I really am trying hard to follow the RX protocol. But I've really been hurting for the past week. I've been having sharp, stabbing pains in my back and various sciatic symptoms. I've literally not been doing anything other than my twice or thrice daily walks and short rides in the car - no lifting, bending, twisting, etc. I'm hyper careful getting in and out of bed to avoid twisting and I "log roll" when turning in bed.
So I'm puzzled. Of course there's nothing to be done about it but still I can't help but wonder what's going on. My overall pain level and symptoms are definitely worse than pre-surgery, bad enough that I've had to take pain meds a couple of days. Time will tell I suppose.
As I've noted ("whined about" would be more accurate) in the past, I continue to be bored and rather low. No "pity party", just a fact. It's hard waking up in the morning with literally nothing to do all day, nothing to do tomorrow, the next day, ... And yes, there are things I could do, even within my severely limited capabilities but an endless series of small chores isn't exactly fun and certainly nothing to look forward to.
In "normal times", Marcia and I would travel, even if it was only for a few days, but these aren't normal times so here we sit. It's well past getting tiresome.
I've been filling the time with lots of RBA related chores. I took over
the defunct Quad Cities region and have been setting up a web site
(www.qcrandonneurs.org for those who are interested), putting together the
2021 brevet schedule for both regions, etc. Keeping in mind that I'm not
supposed to sit for more than about 30 minutes, this has taken a while.
I work on it for a bit, get up and walk around or do something else,
work on it for a bit...
One bright spot though has been friends from around the world checking in periodically to see how I'm doing. I'm touched that they're thinking of me. I feel like I'm letting them down by not having something more positive to say than "about the same" or "a little worse" but that's the way it is. I'm grateful for their thoughtfulness and concern.
Given all the spare cycles I have, I've been thinking about cycling (see what I did there?). As I've said in the past, pre-surgery the recumbent was noticeably easier on my back and I'm planning on riding it on the trainer when I'm cleared to ride. I've been thinking that it might be best to ride it exclusively for a prolonged period of time, perhaps all year next year, to let my back fully recover. I'm not sure yet that's what I'm going to do since it has a number of follow-on implications but I have been thinking about it.
I've had surgery on my shoulder twice. Most recently, I had AC reconstruction surgery about 5 years ago which called for almost three months of no use of my arm at all - I spent six weeks with it strapped to my waist. It was two full years before I could objectively say my shoulder was better than it was before the surgery. It's still not "perfect" but over a longer arc of time having the surgery was the right thing to do.
Given that experience, I'm thinking that perhaps not putting my back under additional stress by trying to do long rides on the diamond frame might be wise. Maybe 2021 is "The Year of the Bent" and I'll resume riding a regular bike in 2022.
Stay tuned!
