Sunday, November 24, 2019
I would love to report that at six months post surgery, I am doing spectacularly well. Thriving, in fact. And, in fact, that’s mostly true.
This bionic knee is doing just great, thank you kindly.
It’s my back that’s killing me.
This latest malady started around a month ago, amid all the air travel of the past couple of months. Long flights to the East Coast and back, followed by a short trip to St. Louis (in one of those small planes where every seat is uncomfortable), then to Madrid and back, and finally to Kauai and back. I know, I know: it’s sinful to complain about ANYthing when you’ve just had a mahhh-velous (if short) getaway to the Garden Island, but complain is what I’m about to do.
My back started to hurt somewhere along the way, between the trip to Madrid and the trip to Kauai. Was it the fact of dragging my suitcase for 3km over cobblestones in the center of Madrid? Was it all that time sitting on planes? Was it carrying my big heavy camera lens around Kauai, trying to photograph elusive birds? Who knows.
What I do know is that my back started to get worse, little by little, day by day. I went to see my chiropractor, Karin. She did her normal adjustments, and declared that my back pain was muscular in nature. Karin believes that in the course of the knee replacement, my formerly-very-knock-kneed left leg was straightened (and made longer in the process), and that sent everything else in my body out of alignment. Her normal adjustments didn’t do a nickel’s worth to make the pain go away.
I started to see myself more and more as a caricature of a little old man, bent over and shuffling along. Standing from a seated position? Agony. Getting out of bed? More agony. Just sitting for any length of time? Argh.
Oddly, the only thing that made my back feel better was standing and walking. What the heck? I have long had problems standing for any length of time without my back complaining, and now it’s the thing to do. Go figure.
A week ago, I was feeling pretty miserable and desperate. I made an appointment with Karen, my second PT. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any time slots available until December. So Ed sent me to get a massage. That helped. Some.
Then I made an appointment to go see Lindsey for PT. Remember Lindsey? She was my on-again, off-again first therapist post surgery. But scheduling with Lindsey has always been easier than scheduling with PT #2 Karen. Happily for me, she had an appointment available early Friday morning.
It snowed lightly most of Thursday, and then more seriously Friday morning. I thought briefly about canceling the appointment: who wants to go out and drive in ice and snow at 7 a.m. when you can stay in your nice warm house? But the benefit of the massage was wearing off - already - and I was feeling a bit desperate. So I ventured out.
Lindsey did a full intake with all kinds of muscle tests. Her take on things: I have a disc (or two) in my back that is inflamed and causing the pain. The culprit is most likely all the sitting on all those plane flights. She gave me one exercise to do - a prone press-up - and told me that I basically cannot do it too much or too often. The effect is to take pressure off the compressed spine.
For the prone press-ups, you lie on your stomach, and press your upper body up, keeping your hips down. That’s it. You work on holding your body up to get a good stretch in your spine. The only equipment required is the floor and you.
And guess what? It’s actually working! I’m doing the stretch just about every time I think of it. That, and ice, and limiting my time sitting: all are working together to get this back back in working order.
It’s about time. I mean, Saturday, November 23rd, marks my six month post-surgery anniversary. I’m ready to rock and roll. Ready to be more and more active. Ready to travel some more.
If only I can stand up without getting stuck all stooped over.
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| Bionic knee at 6 months - you can see that I still have a lot of muscle mass to regain. |
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