I’ve got lots to be thankful this year for but here’s what’s most on my mind right now, I mean aside from loved ones, our dogs, and beautiful fall colours…
I just posted this to Twitter but I want to share it here too…
“I did it! 15 minutes on a regular spin bike, not a recumbent, forwards not backwards. I grinned the entire time. Tomorrow will be 6 weeks since total knee replacement surgery. I’m giving thanks.”
I’m now home icing and elevating and excited about getting back into cycling shape. Next time I’ll bring music. I can do 15 minutes without tunes but longer will take my Zwift playlists.
My spin bikeGrinning!Spin bikeChase and CheddarFall colours
A few weeks ago, I ran into my house to retrieve a beach rug and I ended up rolling my ankle severely. While it wasn’t bad enough to warrant a visit to urgent care, I wasn’t my swiftest either.
Having dealt with the sprained ankles of others over the years, I knew I had to rest, ice, apply compression and elevate my injured ankle.
I was curious though: over the last few years, I have rolled my ankle just slightly enough to pause but never enough to feel pain.
As someone with ovaries and estrogen, it occurred to me maybe this might be connected to menopause. Our bodies change in response to depleted estrogen (cessation of periods being one symptom and hot flashes being another.
Turns out our ligaments are affected by menopausal hormone changes including increases in swollen tissues in our feet. Good foot care is important at this stage of life as recovery from sports related injuries such as sprains in feet and knees can take time.
I was lucky. I bought new shoes, acquired some fancy compression socks and regularly applied a topical pain reliever. I’m back to walking lengthy distances without post walk aches. However I’ll keep practicing my ankle exercises (flexing, pumping, and writing the alphabet with my toes) while also stretching my upper leg muscles which compensated for my injury.
So if you are a pre, post or experiencing menopause person, maintain your weight bearing exercises for strong bones and remember to pay attention to your ligaments and soft tissues in your feet.
MarthaFitAt55 likes learning new things about how our bodies work.
Even though I’m making progress, it’s still a slog. The big issues are physio–so much physio!–and also pain management. It feels like alternating between physio and icing and elevation is still pretty much a full-time job.
The hardest and most important exercises are focused on range of motion, making sure my knee can bend and straighten. But I’m also doing some balance work, standing one legged with the operated leg doing the work. The other focus is strength, lots of sit to stands, and leg raises.
I’m excited to say that I’m making progress. This isn’t a particularly flattering photo but it does demonstrate that I’m getting better at bending my knee. A lot of physio went into getting there!
Sam with crutches getting into the car
Also othe bright side I’m off the serious pain medication.
I feel more like myself
I can read again. Phew.
After four weeks, I can drive again. It’ll feel better not needing Sarah or my mum to take me to physio.
I’m getting around pretty well on crutches and in the house, within a room, I don’t really need them. I’m still struggling with carrying stuff. I need a coffee and book carrying robot to follow me around the house. I can do basic household chores like dealing with the dishwasher and cooking and sorting clothes but I can’t do things that require carrying stuff, like setting the table.
I also had the surgical staples removed and check in with the surgeon in London
No more staples
I think it looks pretty good. I’m impressed with their needlework/stapler skills. What I can’t do, until that heals completely, is immerse myself in water. I can shower, yes, but no swimming pools, hot tubs, or baths just yet.
I can now look forward to short outings.
This past weekend we had breakfast with a friend.
Sarah and I made also it to the farm. For me there’s no swimming, no hot tubbing, no bike riding. There’s still lots of physio and icing but with different scenery. It’s lovely.
Hoping to go out to the movies next week.
I’m also looking forward to getting back to work. Medical leave for knee replacement is 6-12 weeks and I’m hoping for the short end of that range.
Have you had a surgery with a long recovery period like this? Any advice you have to offer?
This is a reblog of a newsletter post from the Rockvale Writers’ Colony by Sandy Coomer, its founder and director. Note: I’ll be there for a two-week writing residency in mid-October! She has things to say about what happened when she had to take a pause from life as usual. I’ll let her take it from here. -catherine
Anyone who knows me well knows I’m very active and busy. That’s my natural tendency. When I rest, I’m often thinking of and planning for the next burst of energy required for the next new project or idea. It’s hard for me to slow down. In fact, I rarely stop for long . . . unless I’m forced to. Funny how that works. When it’s necessary to pause, when I’m required to stop my busy enterprises, I’m pleasantly surprised at how refreshing it is to simply “Be.”
I had a triathlon race in Wisconsin this past weekend. I had a good swim and was at mile 15 of the bike when a pedestrian/spectator ran onto the bike course and we collided. The collision made me crash head-first into a parked pickup truck. The moments that followed were interesting. I was unable to say where I was or what my name was. I didn’t feel panic – just a sort of confused wonder at what I was doing on the road. I knew I was in a race, but I had no idea where. When someone told me I was in Wisconsin, I remember thinking, “How in the world did I get to Wisconsin?” Within a few more minutes, I remembered everything, and then I was whisked away to the emergency room.
I’m not badly hurt, but I will need a few weeks to heal from my injuries. It’s a forced pause, a slow-down to allow my body to heal and my concussion-addled brain to steady. Living in the still air of patience and acceptance is a lesson in a different sort of fortitude than the one I’m used to. It wasn’t in my plans to get hurt, but the hurt came anyway, and it’s my responsibility now to see what I can learn from it. Otherwise, the experience is wasted.
Here’s what I’m discovering from my forced “Pause.”
People matter more than anything else. So many people have taken the time to check on me and see if I need anything. Am I attentive to others’ needs when I’m in “Busy” mode? Can I take a moment every day to tune into another person’s heart and say “I see you, you matter?”
Being still teaches a certain kind of balance which can lead to delight. I sat on my back porch yesterday and watched the afternoon fade into dusk. Two chipmunks were chasing each other from the porch to the grass and into the burrow under the shed. I felt like I was a crucial part of this scene. I belonged in an intricate way to the wonders of nature. I didn’t move or direct anything. I simply was there.
Letting go of perfectionism is the key to being satisfied. I was sorely disappointed I didn’t finish the race. I kept replaying the details of the wreck in my head over and over. What did I do wrong? What should I have done differently? Sometimes, stuff happens that we can’t control. Sometimes, we simply have to accept the drama of the day and move on with gratitude.
Beauty exists in every situation if you stay open to it. As I was being driven from the ER back to my hotel, I noticed the light glinting off the water of the lake, little cups of sparkle and glee. I thought, “how beautiful.” Back at home, I settled into my own comfortable bed with its floral comforter and sage green pillows and I thought, “how lovely.” Do I even notice this when I’m focused on all I need to get done?
When I think about my writing, I realize that if I get too focused on the achievement aspect and forget the beauty of each moment, I can miss the whole point of writing entirely. I write because I have something valuable to say. My writing comes from my soul, not my ambition. Remembering that is what will keep me at the page.
A “Pause,” forced or chosen, can be a time of pondering and eventually, great insight. If we believe every situation has a purpose and a lesson, we’re more apt to let experiences teach us and take the lessons to heart. Yes, we learn a lot from work, but we learn equally from not working, from pausing our “Go” button, and simply allowing the universe to share its infinite wisdom. I would not have chosen to wreck in the race, but I AM choosing to ponder the Pause, the Moment, the Wonder of Being Here Right Now.
So I am the sort of person who is good at following the advice of physiotherapists. I’ve successfully rehabbed some serious injuries and I trust the professional advice of physiotherapists. I do what I’m told.
It’s also worth noting that I have exceptionally good benefits and they cover almost all of my physio costs. And yet, even for me, physio after knee replacement is tough and I thought I’d explore why.
First, advice about recovering from knee surgery can sound contradictory. The take home sheets from the hospital say to use your new knee as much as possible each day. It will help you heal faster from surgery and improve your chances of long-term success. But also it says to avoid pushing yourself too far too soon. So as much as possible but not too much. Yep.
And practically it feels like that too.
The knee feels good and so I go for a short walk. After that it swells up and is painful so it’s time for ice and elevation. I’m constantly moving between making the knee work and then helping it recover.
After I posted about going for a very short walk this morning, friends commented, great, now rest!
What’s as much as possible but not too much? There’s not really good intuitive measure at this stage since everything hurts a lot of the time.
Second, unlike other physio I’ve done this is really painful. It’s the kind of painful where you ice before and after and take pain medication around your pt sessions. Since you’ve just undergone surgery and things still hurt from that, you feel a bit like hiding on the sofa, covering yourself in blankets, and waiting until the pain goes away.
Third, it’s pretty time consuming.
Here’s a rough schedule of my days this week. Next week I’m hoping to be able to get on the bike trainer to help with my range of motion.
6 am breakfast, drugs, ice and elevation in bed
630 physio round one, basic stretching and mobility
700 more elevation and icing and getting ready for the day
Tiny walk
800 Breakfast round two, more pain meds, more elevation and icing
900 Physio round 2 mobility and stretching plus regaining strength
930 ice and elevation
10-12 free time for reading possibly napping
12-1 lunch
100 ice and elevation, more pain meds
130 Physio round 3, mobility and stretching and regaining strength
200 ice and elevation
230-4 free time for reading and napping etc
4-6 dinner etc
7 last round, 4, of basic mobility physio
Tiny walk #2
Bed with all the ice and more pain meds
That’s me on the deck post tiny walk, resting and icing, as friends and physio advised.
Like most cyclists, I have a yearly distance goal. It’s ranged over the years from 4000-7000 km. This year it’s 5500 km.
My goals and monthly activity on Strava
I’ve got 785.5 km to go. In normal times that would be perfectly reasonably even going into the fall months because of Zwift and weekend gravel rides.
But I’ve also just had total knee replacement surgery. Another friend who also had the same surgery got back on his bike at 8 weeks. It’s never reasonable though to look at someone else’s progress and make that your own standard. Isn’t there something about comparison being the thief of joy?
I started to do the math. There’s 18 weeks left in 2022.. Suppose I’m like him and riding on Zwift at 8 weeks. That gives me ten weeks to meet my annual mileage goal. That’s about 80 km a week. Say 4 easy 20 km rides a week. I could even do that slowly, just spinning, no pressure on the pedals.
Still, though it might have doable, it also might not be.. This isn’t a year for distance goals. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, fine. I have big picture goals about mobility and long term bike fitness. That matters in ways that arbitrary numbers on the bike computer just don’t.
I do have one immediate goal though–getting upstairs on crutches to the shower! I can shower if I can keep the incision covering dry with a plastic bag taped on and use a hand held shower. Sarah just bought one to install.
That’s our weekend mission.
Next week it’s my hope to be sleeping upstairs and have the bike back on the trainer downstairs. I’ll be using the bike purely for range of motion purposes. It’s likely going to be awhile before I can make a complete rotation on the trainer.
Anyway, I’m blathering. Thanks pain drugs. The point is just to say, I’m giving up distance goals and sticking to sensible short term functional fitness while my knee heals.
Sam with crutches outside Defy physiotherapy in Guelph
So this month I both rode my bike in the Friends for Life Bike Rally and I’m having total knee replacement surgery.
I didn’t plan it this way at all–I signed up for the bike rally a long time ago and I just got the call about knee surgery a few weeks ago.
I’ve been amused at the variety of reaction I’ve gotten for this and I have some thoughts of my own.
My favorite reaction was from the massage therapist at the rally. She laughed when I told her my knee was sore but not from riding. It’s just always sore. We focused on my back and ignored the knee. “You don’t owe that knee anything, ” she said. “It’s nice that you don’t have to baby it through the bike rally. You’re just going to finish the rally and then say goodbye to it.”
My regular everyday ongoing knee physio people are impressed. They talk about the important of strengthening the muscles around the knee prior to surgery and that riding a bike is a good way to do that. We never waste time in physio sessions bike riding since I also ride my bike to get there. They’re keen to get me back at physio within days of surgery. Currently surgery is Monday and my first physio appointment is Friday. But I won’t be biking there that time. Or driving either. My mother likely will be taking me.
Lots of friends are confused about my ability to ride my bike so far. “But I thought you were having knee replacement surgery?” Yes. But it’s never been about riding my bike. It’s that once I get off the bike I can barely walk around the block and I can’t stand for very long. That’s true even if I don’t ride my bike at all. My knee actually feels better when I’ve ridden my bike.
For a few years now I’ve come to rely on cycling. Sometimes I ride around campus. I travel with my folding bike so I can get around a new place without walking. At first it was a matter of giving up on other athletic activities–soccer, running, Aikido etc. But lately it’s been a matter of giving up more everyday stuff. For example, I wait in the car while Sarah goes grocery shopping. Cheddar just gets short walks around the block. And I carefully plan my trips up and down the stairs.
The bike rally was a good example of how limited my life is outside of cycling. Yes, I could ride my bike 110 km each day. But once I got to camp I needed Sarah to put up the tent. The walking around the campsites wasn’t easy. I’m really looking forward to being able to do more, besides ride my bike, as much as I love it.
Mostly I’m looking forward to long walks, hiking, and canoe camping with long portages. But also everyday things like sleeping through the night without knee pain and being able to get groceries and put them away.
Wish me luck. Surgery on the left knee is one week! Surgery on the right is 6 months to a year after that.
I’ve written before about my one seriously arthritic toe. One! What a weirdo toe. It’s the same toe that kept losing the toe nail at even the hint of strenuous activity. It’s a toenail that sees cross country skiing in its future, turns black, and falls off. The same, of course, for running. It’s my Bad Toe, and I’ve even been prescribed toe physio for it.
I confess I haven’t been keeping up with my toe physio. And issues with my knees felt more pressing and that felt like physio enough.
Until my feet started hurting while riding my bike. Toe cramps bad enough to make me want to get off my bike. Ouch! I wear orthotics in my running shoes and in my everyday boots. But until now I thought of cycling as an activity that didn’t require orthotics. The keywords are “until now.”
So I now have orthotics for my cycling shoes, in addition to my running shoes, and they seem to help. Aging bodies and activity seem to require a bunch of extra work and resources. I’m feeling extra grateful for my benefits these days.
Cycling shoes and running shoes with socks sticking out
