Patience, grasshopper.

*sigh* One step up, three steps back. This is the first week I've felt even remotely like "myself" since before the surgery. I was sleeping better and feeling much stronger, considering. I think maybe I'm pushing too hard, though, because as of tonight my pain has skyrocketed and the electric current between my posterior and my toes could light up the whole neighborhood. Hard to sleep with that going on. Remember a while back when I said I'd need to re-read some posts to remember? I did. I CAN do this and I WILL do this and I WILL walk again...maybe a little slower. Right now what I'm doing is not exactly walking. It's shuffling...it's awkward. I teeter and totter. No grace involved. All of our buddies are in town this weekend for the Alabama game - all of them have called, wanted to get together...I just can't do it yet. If they came here to the house I think I could pull it off okay. But going out? To a restaurant? A bar? The GAME? No. I've given my beloved full blessings to go out out out and enjoy the fun football stuff between now and December...I hate more than anything that he's missing out. He says he's not. I say he's fibbing. Yes, I am truly lucky.

Anyway, this is the routine: up at 8am, first walk. This one smarts the most, because I'm so stiff. Leg won't always do what I want it to do. I'd say maybe a quarter mile before it gives out. Then home, lie down for a few to rest (who knew this would be so exhausting???). Then back up, do a little work (hurrah! brain turned on! curiosity about anything and everything satisfied!). I'm happiest when I'm working, to be honest. Always have been. Despite not wanting to, I break from work for another walk. Little less awkward, just as slow but not as fearful of a fall. Quarter mile. Tired. Rest. Back to work! Hurrah! Then beloved arrives home and orders me to get off the computer and get up and moving (grrrr). Walking or swimming, whichever he says. My trainer. Swimming is easiest and I can usually tire out any lingering muscle spasms or stiffness from the sitting/lying down. In an ideal world, the best thing for me would be movement every 20-30 minutes. Anything. Just movement. But that's not reality so this seems like the best approach, breaking up the exercise into shorter segments.

So that's the update for now. This time next month I want to see one mile walks twice a day, and swimming or yoga (my yoga now will never be the yoga I was doing pre-surgery, but the stretching is still there) three times a week, minimum.

Can we get a pool, beloved? Oh. Right. October. Okay, indoor pool?