since6

Yesterday I was 17 days out from L5/S1 spinal fusion surgery. Ups and downs, getting off pain medications, ending the use of the walker, being able to shower without being in a rock climbers three point anchored position when you have to use a hand or move a foot, driving the car with my wife, then driving the car alone, removing all bandages. But then new pains with use, doubts, questions. Sleep is still iffy, fluid retention and wearing compressions socks. Yesterday was one of those doubts, a crossing of sorts. I dressed in my bib shorts, donned a bike jersey and had my wife loosely lace up my non-clip on bike shoes. Yesterday I rode an upright stationary bike trainer.This trainer among many many options had an interactive setting with a couple of the great Tour de France climbs. I chose Alpe d’Huez and watching the screen set off. The program wants to do things my body isn’t ready for, so today as it would climb and ratchet up the resistance 12, 14, 16, etc. I would thumb it back down to 6 for warm up and then 8 for the length I would climb. Yes, today was about testing a bridge, testing a limit not removing it. So I chose to ride 17 minutes for the 17 days I am post surgery and I did.

Differences? Old, old memories the last upright bike I had ridden was around when I was 12 years old, 56 years ago. There had been two a single speed Coast to Coast bike won by my mom and then a Schwinn Corvette three speed, both with the fenders, the Coast to Coast with a double D cell light and a buddy capable to carry rear rack, the Corvette an optional seat metal loop guard in back and hand brakes. They both weighed as much as I did, maybe even more when I started riding at the age of six. All the weight coming down the spine and settling on all new wider contact points. But the legs spun and I held the bar watching the heart rate climb, looking at the ride up this mountain of a climb and the cherry trees in full bloom outside the Y’s windows. Then there was this, my back brace (corset), cinched up, making every breath count.


But I made it, 17 minutes, and walking back to the car, I noticed my step, my gait felt for the first time like me, like I was walking, and by that I mean my body was walking without me thinking about it.

May you all take care.

artclone

jamesdak 

Hang in there and keep at it!

since6

For those who may have wondered:How the injury actually occurred and what really happened during surgery..

NASA One (flight control): "It looks good at NASA One."

B-52 Pilot: "Roger. BCS Arm switch is on."

NASA One: "Okay, Victor."

B-52 Pilot: "Lining Rocket Arm switch is on."

B-52 Pilot: "Here comes the throttle. Circuit breakers in."

Since6: "We have separation."

Chase plane: "Roger."

B-52 Pilot: "Inboard and outboards are on."

B-52 Pilot: "I'm comin' a-port with the sideslip."

NASA One: "Looks good."

B-52 Pilot: "Ah, Roger."

Since6: "I've got a blow-out - damper three!"

Chase plane: "Get your pitch to zero."

Since6: "Pitch is out! I can't hold altitude!"

B-52 Pilot: "Correction, Alpha Hold is off, turn selectors — Emergency!"

Since6: "Flight Com! I can't hold it! She's breaking up, she's break—"


Oscar Goldman : Since6, astronaut: a man barely alive

(voice of my surgeon)

Gentlemen we can rebuild him
We have the technology
We have the capability to make the worlds first bionic man
Since6 will be that man
Better than he was before
Better, Stronger, Faster

Thus began the legend of the: “Under $10,000 Dollar Man!”

Kudos to the opening credits of the TV series “The Six Million Dollar Man”, dating myself back when a million was a billion, err, a trillion…

scozim 

Glad to hear the recovery is progressing - stay patient.

gugie 

Serms like every time I hurt myself, my bike helps cure it. Well done!

Classtime 

since6

Thanks all, the hardest part is the time when you wonder about aches and pains and run out of things to do, read, etc. First week with the wife back at work, so a lot of time to fill, kind of the opposite to the wired, going, never stop of life, you see something and then you remember 'Oh can't do that for another 9 weeks."
We're having good weather so may get a chair out on the patio and just sit, that's the beauty of bike riding, after about 40 minutes the mind finally turns off and then you just enjoy what you see, listen to your body and come home more you and less a wired mind. So now the challenge to find that without the bike.
Maybe get a bag of bird seed and cast and wait in the patio chair, see what happens, have to chuckle, boy he's loosing it, no really as in my rides, loosing it is really where I find it.
Again my thanks.

RiddleOfSteel

I have long secretly thought that, relative to the natural, a bicycle is the elixir to many, if all ails. The supernatural is a different thing (and conversation) all together, but as far as the tangible goes, bikes, man... Bikes rule. And I can't get enough of them.

jbchybridrider 

Whoa there cowboy Backs are different for everybody but go slow. I had a L5 S1 fusion, was a 2 year recovery. 3 years to be 100%, lost my job and career over it . Set goals for being more mobile and walking is the best thing you can do.
I remember getting home from hospital a week after surgery and riding a bike around the garden, absolutely stupid of me looking back

ryansu

Couldn't resist - good luck with the recovery

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...CEC1&FORM=VIRE

since6

Thanks all, recovery is also, as you see, the return of humor, but as several mention there's always that edge of doubt. At the 13 day review all was positive and when I asked about resuming riding on an upright bike trainer was oked, so long as "NO BENDING, NO TWISTING AND NO LIFTING MORE THAN 20LBS.", easy to say but hard to put into life. So I do the best I can and use my garage grabber thing, you know the one you use to get a dropped bolt out of the engine bay instead of using an engine hoist to remove the engine to get the dropped bolt, I wear my brace all the time I'm up right and even while riding the trainer, I watch how much I lift at one time, keep grocery bags to 15lb max, and bless them they do weight them, and do a lot of quarter to half leg squats keeping the back straight to allow me to reach more things. Then I walk, trying to add a little more, but watching all the time what my body says, and then you live with the doubt. Tthe surgeon/physical therapist at the hospital want you to walk, I walked the entire floor twice with a walker the day of, after surgery, then the next day did this again with stairs x 2, but I hear of others recovery, too fast, too much and outcomes that linger or worse. But where's the yard stick, what are the markers? I guess I listen to fatigue and of course to pain, when tired time for a nap/rest, but then the battle with disrupted sleep, or as I call it the 2:00-3:00 AM TV programming Hour, before things calm down in body and thoughts and you can go back to sleep.
So hard to know balance when with recovery the edge should be kept moving to full recovery.
Now to add in food changes, time to drop the back pack carried too long, little risk there as long as I keep the protein and calcium coming for everything to repair.
There you have it, thanks for listening.

USAZorro

Looking forward to your Zoncolan report. Day by day - follow the doc's advice and stay as active as you can. Hope to see you're out and about for real in the near future.

smontanaro 

Woo hoo! Keep up the good work.

After my surgery a couple years ago (Ti rod in my right femur), a stationary bike made a world of difference to my recovery. I have an old Dawes Galaxy which I bought cheap on CL and intended to either part out or flip, but got around to neither. Consequently, I had perhaps the most upright bike you can imagine waiting for me:

squirtdad

I think you owe yourself a king of the mountain jersey...... alpes de huez after surgery

since6

But Squirtdad I couldn't order the Polka Dot until I've made Goal-1, the climb with resistance turned down to what I can handle right now, and then could only wear it after Goal-2, making the climb against the full programmed resistance.

Hope to do both by June 13 when I should be released from restrictions if all goes well.

But yes I had that thought too.

For tonight and this week, ride the upright trainer after work with my wife/tandem stoker, and goal to ride 20 minutes each night, then next week add 5 min., but again dependent on what my body tells me as recovery is a cure not an injury.

Thanks all.