Here’s another recovery update. I’m 2 weeks and 2 days post-op and doing a little better every day. The biggest challenge is figuring out how much to do and how hard to push myself. The conventional wisdom on the recovery from this surgery is to do “normal” life as much as you can, but also to take it slow and allow the body to heal.
I seem to go between “do everything” to “do nothing” as I try to figure out my limits. I’ve been feeling much better over the past few days and I’ve been mostly out of pain. One of the things that they told me would be best for my recovery is to walk. I haven’t been able to do much walking because it is so snowy and icy here. If I were to walk in the neighborhood, I risk blowing my whole back out with a fall. Yesterday, Valerie suggested we take a trip to the mall so that I could walk some. I was feeling good, so that sounded great. We took the boys, ate at the food court and then I was off to walk. I walked to the Post Office at the other end of the mall and realized that I didn’t have enough money. So, I walked back to the other end of the mall where Valerie & the boys were in a toy store. After this lap, I realized that I was still in recovery. Some pain in the legs and some pain in my incision, but overall okay. I then made a second lap back to the post office and after that I was pretty worn out. I was tired and I was starting to have more and more incision pain. My stupid brace just rubs that incision like crazy.
After finishing a few errands and picking up Kirby Ann at pre-school I was pretty much wiped out and in pain. It was officially an “over-do-it” outing.
Today, I’m taking it easy. Valerie took the kids downtown to the Christmas Market for our annual kid’s shopping trip. They will all buy each other presents. I’m sad to miss it, but I know I couldn’t handle it. Tonight we have a Christmas party so I need to rest up.