Healing at your own pace

You can’t always believe everything you hear but you can use it as a guideline. I heard “you’ll be back on your feet after 2 weeks,” “you should feel back to yourself after 3 months,” “the bone graft takes 6 months to fuse,” “you should feel normal again after 1 year.” I guess healing from back surgery takes somewhere between 2 weeks to 1 year. It all depends on many different factors such as how long the pain has been going on, if there was nerve damage, the complexity of the surgery, complications after surgery, and how much work you’re willing to put in during the rehabilitation. I did a lot of research to prepare myself prior to going into surgery and my husband and I decided that I would dedicate a full year to recovery. I have the best husband, Larry is extremely supportive and encouraging! He told me that right now, my back is my job and that’s the primary thing that I should concentrate on. Needless to say, I thought that I would be better off at this time. I am at 15 weeks from surgery (Mom says I sound like a pregnant woman!) and I really believed the saying about feeling like myself again around 12 weeks or so. When I hit that mark I was disappointed to see how many restrictions I still had and most of all how much pain I was still in. Well it’s amazing how much can happen in 3 weeks. This weekend I could tell that something happened and that I just reached a new level. Today I feel great and my range of motion has improved tremendously; I can bend to put the cat food bowl on the floor, I can put the grocery items in and out of the cart, I can lift and carry the grocery bags out of the car trunk to the house, and I can sit on the couch instead of my recliner to watch a movie. All these little accomplishments are what give me confidence again and make me feel like I’m getting my life back!