Wednesday, October 30, 2019

WWU - It's All About the P's

Physical therapy, perambulation, and private workouts - a little bit of everything! 

Physical therapy
Amanda does a reassessment every four weeks, so as she measured my movements she was able to compare my new numbers to where I was right before surgery, and I'm not too far off on quite a few.  I am on others, of course, which is to be expected.  We talked about my pain; she was very reassuring in that it will fall off, little by little.  That cannot come soon enough, and there's nothing I can do to speed it along which is a little (OK a lot) frustrating.

As for exercises, she had me try a few that I did back when I started PT last June.  Holy cow, I couldn't move at first!  It was such a bizarre feeling - these were the exercises that had dropped off my routine because I did them so easily.  Eventually I was able to do them but I have a way to go before I can do them correctly, and without hurting.  Well only one hurts to do it and of course I do that one very little compared to the others because it hurts and I don't really want to make myself hurt any more than I already do - sounds reasonable, doesn't it?  We'll see what she has to say about that at my next session, which is tomorrow.

Perambulation
First off, I was really proud of myself for coming up with a P word for walking without having to use a thesaurus.  I've been slowly weaning myself off of the Gabapentin and maybe my brain is returning to normal.  I've been walking, not regularly, but I've done it.  I've been building up the distance and except for the first walk, I haven't hurt afterward, which is nice.

On Sunday Jeff and I went to scary statue park to walk.  We walked around the soccer fields first for .75 miles - yes, 3/4 of a mile - for Aiden's birth weight.  The runners did 7.5 miles the day before so this was my version:
Haven't posted a Garmin shot in a long time!
Posed for the picture and then we were off to walk amongst the scary statues.

I'd forgotten how nice it is to walk there, although I wouldn't do it by myself - a little too remote for my liking.  There have been a lot more statues added so that was a nice distraction:
Rosie the Riveter
I liked that they placed Rosie with the soldiers in the WWII area as women were a big part of the war effort.  The sun flare was cool, too.
He's stepping on me!!  I can't remember which war this one represented but of course I had to get this shot.  Be impressed, I'm balancing on rocks which was probably not the greatest idea but anything for the blog, right? 

The weather was great for the walk - we added another mile to the .75 which was the longest distance I've walked to date.  I do have a complaint about walking, though.  It takes soooooooooo long.  Even when I'm not messing around taking pictures, it takes forever to walk just a little bit.  The hardest is when we walk in our neighborhood - I've run those streets for a decade and my god are they boring when I walk.  I didn't feel that way when I used to run them.  I knew it would be a challenge to build up walking distance after so much time off, but holy cow.  It's not something I look forward to do, that's for sure.

Private workouts
I had my first private workout with Jared yesterday!  Unlike walking, I was really looking forward to that.  It was so good to be back in the gym, doing things to make me strong.  He's going off what my PT is having me do so there's nothing that should make my back hurt or cause my leg to hurt any worse.  I'll be going once a week for the next three weeks and then we'll evaluate and see if I feel ready for a faster-paced group workout. 
A return to BCS Fitness means a selfie to commemorate the occasion!

17 comments:

  1. Hooray for the 3 Ps!!! It's so great to see you on the comeback trail!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, that is a full week you had! When I walk with the dogs, I don't mind it at all. And I have been taking the same route for a long time. There's always something to look at, although usually I'm looking at the ground to make sure I don't fall!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suspect it's because I'm used to moving faster (although not that fast, LOL) - and I also suspect I wouldn't be as bored if I were walking on Westcliff Drive or with you!

      Delete
  3. Yay!!!! I'm glad to see you made it back to your strength workouts with Jared! That should help a lot.

    You're starting to look more like the old Shelley in these pictures, which is great to see :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Anne - I am feeling better overall. A little more hopeful, finally.

      Delete
  4. Yay for being able to get out and about and to be actually able to do a "walk".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, I should be grateful and not bored with the walks - it's so much better than a couple of months ago.

      Delete
  5. You are so good with your workouts!! You'll back into the swing of things before long and these long slow boring walks will be history. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eh we'll see - I'm not planning on running for a while...gotta protect my back.

      Delete
  6. So good to see you out and about, Shelley! Hope you continue to improve with the help of your 3 Ps :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yippee! You are really making great progress, Shelley. Being out and about and smiling while you are doing so is a fabulous sign :D

    ReplyDelete
  8. Woohoo to The three p’s!!! I am also impressed that you came up with the word without a thesaurus! I couldn’t have...and I’m not on meds!!!

    You are doing great! It seems slow but I have a feeling that with the return to exercise and the fact that you are carefully pushing yourself that things will naturally speed up here soon!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are now moderated to prevent spammers from leaving, well, spam - but rest assured that as soon as I read a real comment, I will publish it. So please, comment away, even though the blog is officially closed. Thanks!