We got to my neurosurgeon's office on Monday to see my new therapist fellow. I felt like I was limping less but moving stiff, bad enough that a coworker told me I walked funny. Fortunately, I don't have any feelings so I wasn't hurt. Overall, I've been feeling much better. I've had a few slow and hard to get out of bed days but substantially better than I was a few weeks ago. That being said, I did need some hand holding and coddling to let me know everything was going to be ok.
After polite introductions and questionairre including a map your pain areas on this drawing...an amazingly awkward experience because I never know if its suppose to be a mirror image or if I'm suppose to pretend that it's me and draw it like that, so I just feel dumb, we got started. He prodded me some, asked me a bunch of questions, moved my legs around asking "does this bother you? Do you feel better sitting or standing?" and so on and so forth. All in all, its 6 of one half dozen if the other, no huge differences unless I'm dragging my sorry carass out of bed or trying to get off of the floor. In case you're wondering, hubby does look on in muted horror when I lay on the floor, he knows I struggle to get up but oh, how I love to lay on the floor! I told him about that really busy work day, the excercises I was doing, how far and fast I was walking, and my general fear that things were going to hurt if I did them. "It hurts when I do this. What is this? This is an actual question I asked my new physical therapist while I was digging a finger into my spine. His response? "it's a tender spot, quit doing that." Good advice that I really can't argue with.
So, the prognosis? Everything is healing up well. After the "insult" of two surgeries back to back, it is going to take a little longer. My fear has made me tense which cause my big motor muscles to engage too quickly so he gave me very small movement excercises to do. Slow down! Walk 1 mile an hour and if I feel ok afterward and the next day bump it up to 1.1 miles an hour and very gradually build it up. If I started to feel bad go back to where I was comfortable. This is counter to what I was doing, I was trying to walk as fast as I could for as long as I could which was causing strain on the muscle bone connection because of my stiffness and limp. This in turn was making it feel like rats were gnawing on my bones. He called it minor Tendonitis, but that doesn't describe the misery accurately. He only wants to see me 4 times, once every 2 weeks and just focus on tiny movements and relaxing into my body, trusting it won't hurt me then I can go to my old excercise list.
I like this guy, he's professional and thorough, not to mention THE therapist working with my surgeon out of my surgeon's office, so experienced with my type of surgery. He has an unplaceable yet reassuring accent so that added to his believability, like when Stanley said "Dr. Livingstone I presume" you just knew it was true. It was Dr. Livingstone and I am going to be fine.
