Two steps forward, one back...

It's day 18 from surgery. Since last weekend I've done another couple of long walks but I've finally had to admit that it's probably not the best thing I could be doing. Finally yesterday, after "good" advice from a range of sources, I took a day off and didn't walk at all. I did the normal walk around the house, read, get food, but that's about it. I did two other things though: I stopped taking all of the short acting opiate painkillers, leaving only two sustained released drugs and something for muscle spasm; and I slept.

I couldn't believe how much I slept, 2 hours, some food, then another 2 hours, then dinner and some TV and then off to bed and slept for 7 hours straight. My body must have wanted to tell me something! I also didn't get bad withdrawals from the painkillers. I'd been expecting worse, all I really got was feeling slightly hypersensitive and grumpy. Some who know me well would say "what's new about that?"!

Today I hit the road again with a small 2km walk and after talking to the physio I'm going to try and stick to a smaller number of shorter walks - around the 2km length rather than a 5-6km out and back marathon.

My surgical scar has one little area that's not quite healed, so I'm hanging out for that to sort itself out. Once that's healed I can do some deep water walking. I'm so bored at the moment that even a small change like that is something to really look forward to.

What's particularly wearing is that I can either walk, stand or lie flat. I can only sit for very short periods and I really suffer if I try and sit for longer. No trips in the car to speak of, no going out to lunch with someone (I tried and suffered afterwards). So life's pretty boring.

Still I should stop bitching. The signs for the long term outcome are pretty good and I managed through some contortions to put my own socks on today. Big win! Don't ask me how!!

Things will no doubt improve as I'm able to do more. Till then I'm like a caged lion!

Hey and thanks for all the support and suggestions on Twitter - you're champs, thank you!