14 Weeks Already?! And Adoption

I don't even know where the last week went. Seriously I jumped from 12-13-14 without really noticing it! Training plan is at a standstill for weights basically. I'm at where I'll be for a little bit.

Quick update, everything's great :). Right paraspinals are still getting occasionally sore and some mild right sacroilliac irritation but that's much better after seeing my Sports Chiropractor Guy the past two Mondays. Not much change from week 13 so lets get to the rest of my life!

Missed the gym a couple times in the past week, family time comes first. I had my biological daughter this weekend. I am a biological mother in an open adoption. In Wisconsin open adoptions are not legally binding. When I birthed my daughter and placed her into the arms of another mother I had to hope that they would keep up with what they agreed to. And they have gone above and beyond that.

For the past couple years twice a year I've had my biological daughter in my home overnight WITHOUT her parents! Yes, you read that right. I can truthfully say I've never heard of this situation with minor adoptees happening with any of the other biological or adoptive parents that I associate with. Having all my kids under one roof is emotionally overwhelming. It's truly amazing and surreal and at the same time very sad. I know the next day she goes home, to her parents. Her real parents, the one's that raised her and taught her all she knows and took care of her when she got hurt and sick. I've missed those things and seeing her in my home reminds me of the things I never got to do with her. That pain of that reminder is no where near the joy of seeing her laugh and smile and drive her big sister crazy and chase her little brother around the house. I am very grateful that I get to have these moments with her. She got to chill with  her cousins too and hang with the grandparents. She met her paternal grandfather for the first time.

It usually takes me a couple days to emotionally recover from seeing her, even when we didn't keep her overnight. Not just because I'm sad, but because I'm happy too. I know that she is who she is because of the decision all her parents made nearly 12 years ago. Us and them. They chose this path as did we and we share an amazing little girl because of it.

No More Pictures Mom!!

Post Op 13 Weeks!

The usual weekly update...

Brief history, microdiscectomy on L5-S1 for a 1.5 cm herniation and bulging disc on Jan 5 of this year.

The tempo swims are going awesome. I'm getting the half lap back done in 20 seconds or less typically. I really hope for an awesome under 30 minute mile when I do my next mile swim for time. I would need to shave about 7 seconds per lap to do that and I think that will be very close to do-able :).

The weights are going well. The SHELCS are killing my hamstrings and my balance still isn't great coming back down from those but I'll get there. The hip weakness on the right makes the balance a bit off. It's really close, close enough on the step ups and doing pretty much everything else, but trying to lower my booty back to the ground when doing those requires pretty good control with both hips equally. That is not yet the case.

Continuing with the 40 lb assist on the pullup/dips but soon I'll be upping from three sets of six to three sets of eight.

And kettlebells, day one I had a couple kettlebell kisses but it'd been months since I did snatches. Since the first day no more bruised wrists!

I'm running two miles now, it's difficult definitely but last nights two mile run was much easier than the mile and a half last week. I might also be better hydrated, really trying to keep up on that particularly when running after work.

Other random things I'm down a full 14 lbs since my surgery. To go to what I've always considered my "normal" is now only 5-7 lbs away (varied day to day by those couple pounds). Very exciting! I'll be trying on the clothes I have stored very soon! My wonderful sister will be telling me what to keep and what to toss. She's awesome!

I've still had a little bit of lower back pain, still I think lingering from the shoveling the other day. But much MUCH improved and now not so bad in the mornings, only after I start doing things. I thought maybe it was the running, but last night running made absolutely no difference so shoveling it must have been. I could really go for an awesome massage though! Really miss those.

12 Weeks Post Op

And the general update, mild low back pain this past couple days but thinking it's because of the bathroom project and doing a lot of leaning forward while cutting and laying the floor to fit.

I did some research as well as met with a Sports Medicine Chiropractor about the weight lifting. He said at the 12 week point he's ok with me upping the weights about 10% when I increase them. The research I was doing says generally that when the scar on the outside of the body turns white then the scars on the inside on the annulus will be as healed as they're going to be, too. Online recommendations say to stay with no more than 50 lbs with weight lifting until that point. So I'm going to play it safe and even though the sports med guy said it's safe now. I'm going to stick with more single leg lifts like the split squats on this current routine so I can lift that weight for longer and still build strength. 

This week I'm allowed to run a mile and a half. I broke it up last night into three half mile's taking a minute or two between. Tomorrow night I'll do a full mile and then Saturday a full mile and a half. I figure the middle run each week I'll do at the prior week's distance. As I increase distance I'll have to adjust for a short run mid week anyway. 

Awesome news, I got my swim suits in the mail today! I can put the faded one in the bottom of the bin and the stretched out one in the garbage. Hoping these two hold up well and if they do, I'll be buying from the same company online again. They fit great. Final test will be how well the straps hold up in the water. And I can't wait for the two bikini's I ordered to arrive for my vacation :). Here they are!

11 Weeks Today

And 11 weeks means I'm allowed to run a mile now! So after midnight last night I did a mile.

My time, for my first post surgical mile and first mile I've done since September of 2015, was 13:04. Hard to see, since I was at home and it was late and I have very poor lighting in my living room. I used to run a mile in about 9 minutes pushing a stroller before the pain got too bad. I'm really hoping to be able to cut my mile time down to about 8 minutes or better. If my running is anything like the swimming, I'll be killing my previous records soon enough. 

My next run will be the Bellin 10k. I'll be allowed to run 6 miles at once just before that since I'm increasing my runs by half a mile per week as advised by my doctor. It was hard waiting this long to run a full mile but I know my long term health is more important. 

General how I feel update. At 11 weeks I'd barely know I had surgery. I feel great. My hips are nearly even in strength with the step ups to the point that the difference is barely noticeable. My flexibility is improving slowly. Before stretching would do the opposite, it would irritate nerves and make me tighter. I'm working on getting the right as flexible as my left but still both need a lot of work to be where I used to be. My hamstrings are still pretty tight generally. Weight lifting is going well, still at 20 lb dumb bells this week. Once I can go up to the 25 lbs next week my legs might be able to feel it a bit better. Just doing the high reps with the low weights till I get there. There is still some mild pulling with stretching at the incision site. After the initial pulling I can do the yoga as they're meant to be done. The incision sometimes itches. The other muscle imbalance I had was the paraspinal muscles along the right side. Though with some of the exercises I do they become sore, they are no more sore than the muscles along the left side. So, I'd have to say they have evened out in strength! I couldn't be happier about having done my surgery. There is no lingering leg issues. The hip pain is gone. There is occasional mild low back pain more often depending on sitting too long and leaning forward at my desk than any of the activities I've been doing. No regrets!

10 Weeks Today!

Surgery was ten weeks ago at about 11 am. It's so hard to believe that this is me from who I was ten weeks ago! Things are amazing still. Well, of course they are, I can walk again without pain :).

Since week nine only big change, I am allowed to run again. Half mile this week and I can up that by a half mile a week. I did my first half mile last night after work. I tried at 5.0 mph and I was shocked I couldn't do it. Why I was surprised, no idea. I guess just because everything else is going so well I thought I would just fall right back into running. I bumped it down to a 4.6 mph pace at the 1 incline. That I could do. Finished up my half mile with barely a sweat despite the perceived difficulty level. I'll be running a half mile again on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

At the gym I'm up to 20 lb dumb bells as of today. I feel slightly less wimpy now that I can at least squat a total of 40 lbs. But still...

Yesterday also more good things. I was planning on an easy swim since I was working on tearing up my bathroom floor and had some help taking down the rest of the glue over the weekend. The floor is not done, but what I did was hard work anyway. So yesterday was going to be just a relaxing swim. By lap ten of my mile swim I saw that my time was actually pretty decent so figured I'd go for it for my last 23 laps. And I killed my last PR by 29 seconds! Even though for the first ten laps I wasn't even trying :).

I'm really happy with how I feel physically. Emotionally since surgery I am so much happier. Just life seems good again. I wish I would have done this years ago rather than waiting as long as I did.

Now just for everything to align perfectly at work since one position was filled and one is still vacant. I'd just like to be on a general day shift eventually and that at least is looking like it might happen. As long as no one else retires or leaves!

Recovery Muscle Soreness is NORMAL

Busy weekend this past weekend. My dad came over and we got all the debris out of the bathroom and I cleaned my garage. Tossed a bunch of stuff in the dumpster before the guys putting in my tub have it picked up. Then I removed a bit of wallpaper glue (wallpaper is down). Sunday the Wildlife Center and some more glue removal.

And my back muscles are sore. I know I just had surgery less than 8 weeks ago, I get this and completely understand it. Most of this soreness is just general I haven't used these muscles properly in years kind of pains. The hard part is knowing what kind of pain is actually "normal". And when I'm overdoing things. It's been so long since I've had "normal" pain and I'm not sure that I recognize it well. This weekend was good because I know that everything I did was within acceptable lifting ranges and this should be considered "normal".

I have to know that I don't have to be terrified that every time I have soreness that I've re-injured myself, because I haven't. I have to know that when I say something hurts (like my erector spinae muscles that were ruthlessly pulled aside during surgery) that other people will worry that I'm somehow damaged again and I'm not. When in reality those muscles are just gaining strength again and like any muscle gaining strength I'm going to feel muscle soreness. You feel it in your biceps after doing a trillion bicep curls, I'll feel it where my muscles are weaker and are still gaining strength too. It's the normal process of building strength and muscle regardless of the location of the muscle.

I'm not damaged and doing normal everyday things will not suddenly damage me. I can ride my bike this summer and lean forward while dragging the bike trailer behind for my little guy. I'll soon be able to run/jog again. And hell, tonight I'm going home and doing some kickboxing on my heavy bag even though I swam a mile this morning (And new PR at 38:15, better even than pre-surgical best).

I just hope my family and friends stop looking at me like I'm going to fall over dead because I live an active fun and enjoyable lifestyle. I'm not that breakable. And I hate HATE when people make me feel like I can't live my life because I'll hurt myself. That is just not true.

Take away here, I'm awesome :). And I feel spectacular. And if I was allowed to run a marathon right now, I'd totally feel up for it!

In Recovery! Return to Blogging!

So some of you may have been wondering where I went. I spent about a year being nearly unable to walk but still managed to get to the gym a little anyway. So this January I had back surgery. A microdiscectomy at level L5-S1, herniated by 14mm. I'm seven weeks post op about and at week six I was allowed back in the gym!

Most important thing, despite pain and agony and near death, I still did the Tough Mudder last year. Biggest priority of the year and only thing that was going to stop me was death itself :).

I'm back at the gym and swimming 3 days a week. I managed to maintain swimming last year till about October before I couldn't do that anymore either. My mile record pre-surgy was 39:00 in a saltwater pool. This Monday, 6w6d post op, I was only 40 seconds shy of my pre-surg PR!!! 39:40
Three days a week will be spent in the pool indefinitely. Two days swimming a mile, mid week water aerobics.

Other awesome news, I'm allowed to lift a total of 30 lbs, though I started with 20, two ten pound dumbbells for my first week and decided to stick with that for week two. Upping that at 10 lbs every two weeks though my doc said never with the bar across my shoulders at more than 50 lbs as a lifetime restriction. For this first 6 weeks, Super set 1: wide squats, narrow squats, and deadlifts. Super set 2: Bench press and chest fly's. Super set 3: Split squat, shoulder press, and overhead tricep extension (with just one dumb bell for that last one). All at 15 reps of two sets. Then of course the pull up/dip station with a 70 lb assist for now. Taking it easy you know ;). After that over to the stepper and doing boring boring step ups forward, backward, lateral. My right hip is much weaker than my right and it will take time to get that rebalanced strength. Those are also all 2 sets of 15 reps. 

Followed by the stationary bike for 30 min steady state or intervals depending on my mood. Then stretching for 10-15 min. I used to end with yoga but the scar tissue is currently too irritated to do that. So basic everything stretching. 

At week 10 I'll be allowed to run again starting at half a mile and upping no more than half a mile a week. Training will begin for my 10k this summer and my first half marathon this September followed by the Tough Mudder two weeks after that! 

In more personal news, I was in a great deal of pain nearly all of 2015. I left my very verbally and emotionally abusive ex in 2014. I made some bad choices and attempted to work things out with him very briefly this past year. Part of that was giving up. Depression caused by the pain made me have very little motivation or care much about what happened to me. He threatened to punch me and the police were called. He'd been physically violent with me before and I wasn't going to end up someone's punching bag. We were done. Truthfully we were done before we started. I knew he was not what I wanted and only tried because I felt like I was supposed to. The only thing I can be glad about with trying again with him is that I kept separation even during the trial, he moved back into my house but in a separate bedroom. It didn't take long even with that separation for him to attempt to control me again. I always want to believe people are better than they are and that they learn from their mistakes and wont hurt me again. Truth is people are who they show you they are. 

I've been doing everything as a single parent since my son was born basically and I met someone who I thought was ok with this shortly before my surgery. That person seemed to be everything I wanted and was looking for. A guy who takes care of his kids and cares about what happens to me. Someone who values fitness and clean eating. Who lives his life in a way that meshes well with mine. Someone I could picture growing with and decorating Christmas tree's with every year. This ended, but confirmed two things for me. I do very much know exactly what I want and I don't have to accept less. Ok, I learned something else too, my son is not a complication, he's the best part of me.

I am for the first time in years pain free! And fully happy. It's a good day to be alive :).