The first few days after surgery, I couldn't do a whole lot. I mean, I walked; I moved. I was kind of in a fog. There were certain movements that would cause that twinge. Even on the days that I felt really good, there was that little voice at the back of my head asking, "Am I doing too much?" "No. I'm ok. I'm doing what the doctor said."
The first week was good. It went incredibly well. Scroll back and read about it.
On Wed of last week, I was 1 week post-op. At one week, I was allowed to start riding and running again. You can imagine. I was feeling pretty good at this point.
I rode the trainer. I ran a little bit.
We had a blizzard hit. We got more snow that anyone other than the mountains. We got over 2 feet of snow with drifts as high as 4 feet. Right after that storm, we got another storm of an additional 8 inches of snow.
I couldn't go outside for any walks for risk of falling or causing any kind of injury. (Remember: I'm only 7 days out from surgery.) Trainer rides inside. Walk/runs on the treadmill.
Day 10 was the first day that I felt 100%. I had no more twinges. There were no activities that I didn't feel comfortable doing.....with the exception of 2. I was nervous about sneezing. Granted....not an activity, but you know. The second was lifting really heavy things. I tend to err on the side of caution. I avoided sneezing, and Mr. Tea did all my heavy lifting.
It was day 10 that I started struggling.
I don't know what to do. I'm lost. I didn't realize it at the time. All I noticed is that my mood had changed. I'm always pretty happy. I was still happy, but I wasn't my normal happy.
Mr. Tea told me that I just needed to get to Wed (my follow up appt) and that everything would be better once I had the ok to start training again.
But that's 4 days away. I know what you're thinking, "It's just 4 days, Tea. BUCK UP."
It's not that easy. This isn't a matter of "bucking up".
I woke up today (day 12) and realized that I have been lost. Prior to surgery, I had worked ahead. I had done all my work for a week, so that I could take as much time as I wanted to recover. Now, I was lost. I was feeling lost because I had no structure to my life. The first week was really fun, doing what I want when I want, having off from work.
But now it was a burden. I needed structure back in my life.
This morning, I sat in front of my computer and went through my training schedule. I found Liz workouts that I could easily do. I started copying and pasting training into my schedule.
Next, I sat down and wrote out a work schedule. I need to accomplish x, y, and z today.
I did the same thing for Tuesday and Wednesday.
I opened trainingpeaks, and Liz had put in training for Thursday of this week through the end of next week. It made me smile.
Just like that. I felt like my old self again.