Bamboo Strong

It was difficult but I succeeded to lose 20 pounds in the months before surgery. Unfortunately, I gained it all back since I had surgery 3 1/2 months ago. I pretty much spent the first 4 weeks in bed and even though I am progressing well, I am still moving at a turtle pace and am not burning many calories. Let’s not kid ourselves; I have also been putting bad food in my mouth! I would say that I am an emotional eater (happy or sad) and I have also been struggling with the medication with water retention and cravings back and forth between sweet and salty foods. I’ve been trying to eat healthy but often times, my energy level is too low and the pain is too high, so Larry cooks…. meaning we order take out!  Today I’ve had enough, it’s time to stop the rolling down the hill, and I’m ready to take back control of my diet and get back on track! I started talking to a dietician from Well at Dell and she helped a lot, giving me good tips to find my way back to healthy eating again.

It is full moon and the clouds have been going over it like a picture perfect movie, Larry called it “crazy moon.” It is apparently the worst drought since 1854 in Texas: even with cloudy skies and thunder, still no rain in Austin but I could feel the humidity in the air as my body ached all weekend. All these elements are a bit contradicting but all put together explains my bad mood and the physical pain all weekend. Of course I can’t only blame Mother Nature… I did over do it just a little bit! On my good days I feel normal and take advantage to catch up but then I pay for it and am reminded of my limits. This morning I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to get up even though I was restless from lying in bed for too long. Again I was emotional at physical therapy and tears came down my cheeks. I hate those days; it’s embarrassing and the pain, both mental and physical, is a reality check. I am so glad to have met Diana, she is the perfect match for me, exactly the type of physical therapist that I need. She really understands what I’m going through and provides me with exercises according to my daily needs. On top of that, she knows the right questions to ask and is a great listener. This morning I went in feeling achy and yucky, and I left feeling better all over and hopeful!

Not the typical 6th street outing that you would expect… instead of a Friday all night bar hoping and drinking, it was a Sunday late lunch at Casino El Camino for a Three-Quarters of a pound Texas Angus Beef Burger with Verde Chili Cheese Fries, yummy! Unfortunately, this fun outing turned out to be a bit much for me. I guess I’m learning as I go and I wasn’t quite ready for this one yet. Luckily we were in great company and we actually had a great time, Phil and Arlene are such understanding friends; they even met us at our place so that we could all ride together in my car since I’m still not too comfortable sitting in other people’s car. Everything was going according to plan until the guys placed the order at the counter and returned to announce that we would have to wait an hour for our food. I tried to not let that discourage me and went for a short walk with Arlene to break up the wait. We enjoyed ourselves but I was tired and slowly that night, I started aching. Larry and I like “Lazy Sundays” and we’ll try to keep it that way for now on.

Floating was the plan but somehow my tough side took over and I decided to do some water exercises… why not! I’ve been working at jobs with such a fast pace for so long that I have a hard time letting myself relax at the pool on a Saturday afternoon and soak up the sun without feeling guilty. I’m seeing results with the physical therapy and Diana said yesterday that I’m progressing very well; so why lose any time and since I feel good why not work a little harder! After all Larry said that taking care of my back is my full time job and I’m a dedicated worker and no pain no gain, right? Well apparently not, my physical therapist says. I actually believe it because every time that I push too hard I hit a set back and it takes me longer to recover and to get back to my steady routine. I was feeling great this morning but since I didn’t give time to my body to rest and repair from yesterday’s therapy, my body is now sore and I’m starting to hurt. I sense a difficult night ahead with mini spasms.

We almost feel like we’re betraying the Alamo Drafthouse because the Flix Brewhouse is now our favorite movie theater in Austin. My parents saw “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” earlier this week and they loved it and it got 82% on Rotten Tomatoes so we just had to go see it for ourselves. I had a good physical therapy session this morning and felt great in the afternoon so I was up sitting in the comfy Flix leather seats for a couple of hours. The movie didn’t disappoint us, the food was actually tasty, and I felt fine when leaving the theater. The perfect way to start the weekend!

Knock on wood… I think that I may finally have made it to the plateau period or at least getting closer. How wonderful will it be to put behind me the roller coaster ups and downs of good days and bad days because it is exhausting both on the mind and body. I hope that I’m not jumping the gun but it’s looking real good as this week I am doing new exercises and I am not hurting as bad as the last couple of weeks. I still have a lot of improvement to make but it looks like the big pain might be over. My legs still get very sore and my body aches from working out in therapy but I know that it is a good healing pain and not like an injury. My knees still feel week and pop but again, it feels like the result of recovery. I rub my legs with relaxing mint lotion every night which is a great pain reliever. The weekend is usually a good test because I tend to do more so we’ll see how this coming one goes.

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!

Last night I uncovered the true meaning of friendship after spending 2 hours on the phone with my childhood friend Kim. Other than finding my soulmate, the past 5 years haven’t been that easy for me and I allowed a chain of events to disconnect me from my loved ones. Somehow I let a job take the best of me and neglected both my friends and my health. I lost touch with Kim but never forgot about her and missed her a lot. Her total understanding reminded me of our unconditional friendship for life and chatting with her boosted my moral. Since I started driving 3 weeks ago I’ve been able to get out of the house more and meet with my friends. Now that I am taking less medication, it is easier to focus and concentrate. Until now I didn’t really feel like socializing but I realized that it is helping me heal because when I’m talking with a friend, I forget about the pain. Thank you Kim for listening!

After 4 weeks of hard work at physical therapy 3 times a week, I finally see huge improvements and it is very rewarding. The doctor had told me that it would be like a rollercoaster with high moments and setbacks, but I had no idea how difficult the setbacks would actually be. It’s very frustrating when I have a great day and almost feel normal again and that the next day I’m in a lot of pain and can barely walk. I worked hard at therapy last week and the recovery time was longer than usual, so much that I was very emotional and didn’t feel physically capable to drive for my Wednesday appointment and had to cancel. I also started loosing a lot of hair a couple of weeks ago, that is apparently a normal side effect of aneshtesia which happens around 3-4 months from surgery. It is a scary thing and between that and the pain, I noticed a bit of depression coming on, which is also typical at this time. All that being said, today I feel great! I had lunch with my friend Jackie (Sorry again for being late, I’m still blaming the drugs!), went to float in the pool as a pain reliever and do a few exercises, and made a nice candle dinner for my husband… a perfect day!

There we go again; another week of hard work is starting! It took me all weekend to recuperate from Friday’s physical therapy and I’m going back today. My schedule is Mon/Wed/Fri and that means that every other day requires rest because of the pain from the workout, but it’s all worth it. As I look back, I notice big improvements. The secret is to compare week to week and ultimately month to month and not dwell on yesterday’s success compared to today’s set back. It plays with my mind because the highs feel so good and the lows can be depressing. It’s important to try to not let it get to me and distract my self with positive thoughts. I make it sound easy but let’s not kid ourselves, we all know that the pain is real and when it hurts, sometime the only thing to do is get upset and cry. I would just say to get it all out and get over it. I usually catch my self in the moment and realize I’m heading down the negative path, so I pick my self up and think how much better off I am today compared to before surgery. Here are a couple of things I like to do to get out of a sour mood: one of my favorite is simplest is laying down on my back with my lavender eye mask on, listening to relaxation music in my earbuds, and an other is going to the pool to float with my noodle and my cowboy hat on, and soak up the sun. It’s important to de-stress and relax to re-energize and restore my muscles. My goal is to get my strength back and thanks to Diana, my physical therapist, I’m heading in the right direction!