Update

I went to my evaluation session with the PT and felt pretty good before he had me run through things.  Alas, I still experience pain at the last one percent of my range and that was enough for him to say that there will be no beatings until that is gone. 

So traction weight has increased and the exercise to facilitate ease of movement has become more aggressive.  Maybe another month?  If so, it will fall in line with his original prognostication. 

In the mean time I’m finding it easy to avoid class and hang out with my wife, but I’ve been mostly working.  I will say that practice in the mornings feels entirely comfortable except that I can’t do any of the yoga I normally enjoy. 

During the evaluation we covered exercises I can and can’t do at the gym which was both nice and frustrating.  Weight lifting is such a horrible place to keep a rigid posture.  There is so much lifting at a horrible level that I’m constantly gritting my teeth when I notice I’m doing it wrong.  Everything good for you has the potential to be bad for you.  And everything that tastes good has the potential to be bad for you. 

The best part of the recovery is that I’m taking a huge pleasure in being able to sit on the toilet and just plain bending down to pick something up without screeching in pain. 

Back And Forwards

After having a long talk with Sensei during the last weekend I figured I’d better visit class just to say hi to gang at the very least, but as the time got closer I just started feeling worse and worse. 

I’ve been going to physical therapy for a little over two weeks and sat down with the doctor to discuss what I was able or capable of doing since we were seeing some nice progress. 

You could almost hear the sad trombone. 

He said it would be two months before pain would be gone (depending) and a full 8 months before the damage healed completely.  During that time I have to make sure I pay huge attention to my spine, it’s curve and any activity that would impact those things. 

So that left me with a lot of questions about what I can and can’t do, but deep down it meant that I’m not going to be doing any kicking or bending for a long time. 

With all that in mind I went to class and figured I’d be incredibly bitter and depressed and sure enough I was.  Class had already begun and everyone was asking how come I couldn’t play.   I had a few folks come and talk to me and got a lot of comments about my long face (and I wasn’t even hamming it up!  I was surprised that I looked that way to them).  

Teacher looked like hell.  Red rimmed eyes, slightly swollen jaw, not able to hear, etc.  He told me that he had an 104 temperature earlier in the day.  He hacked his way through the start up and I thought he was going to keel over a couple of times, but when the gang started pairing off he said, “why don’t you walk around and correct folks?”  Music to my ears!  I was a bit tentative, but walked around and went to work. 

I had only intended to stay for a little bit and ended staying the whole two hours.  I walked out floating on a cloud.  I can participate!  Man did that feel good.  Of course a new guy didn’t get the fact that I can’t play and still wanted to take me down at the hips.  Just that little jostle sent a zip up and down my back.  Must be careful!