2013-06-29 Saturday Beer at Mellow Mushroom
2013-06-29 Saturday Beer at Mellow Mushroom

I’m a lot better than I was even just a couple months ago. I’ve retired the walker to storage in the garage and I’m focusing on not leaning on the cane when I walk. When I wake in the morning I take a quick pain inventory and except for the bottom of my feet still suffering from neuropathy my legs feel really close to normal. But my feet not giving my legs full surface/balance/sensory feedback, so I’m not back to normal and still tire easily. Yesterday I walked my local Costco and Best Buy using my cane and not using an electric cart to ride or even regular cart to lean on. That wasn’t too bad. But when I stopped at a local sporting goods place to try on some five-finger shoes I really had to use my leg muscles to get my feet and all five toes into the correct position. The very helpful sales guy, Mike, said that getting the shoes on the first time was always the toughest. He wasn’t kidding. I almost gave up when it seemed impossible for me to get my little toe AND my big toes in their proper alignments at the same time. But like I said I muscled my way into them and was surprised at how comfortable they were, well, the left one was and the right one was a bit too tight. But after struggling to get them on I wore them out of the store and the rest of the evening.

When I woke up this morning my thighs felt like I’d gone up and down my stairs a half dozen times and the bottom of my feet felt just a bit hypersensitive. I decided against climbing up on a ladder and installing my ceiling fan today because I knew that would probably require more muscling than I had in reserve. Damn. I guess I over did it a bit yesterday. What was it my physical therapist brother said, you can either go further or go farther but you can’t do both at the same time and expect improvements. Yeah, I guess yesterday I do both and I’m really feeling it now. Today I’m doing neither.

Between here and there I have to figure out how to push myself so that I improve but I have to stay aware that I’m still not all there and going too hard will result in days of recovery. One step forward/two steps back. No thank you. I have to pace myself. Damn. Never been my strong suit. How do you stay aware of your pacing when all your energy is needed to focus on just getting the damn job done? I guess I’ll figure that out. Pacing, who da thunk? Right now I just need to get off my feet, curl up on my memory-foam couch and let the buzz of the fans help me drift off so that my muscles can be restored. It isn’t like the ceiling fan isn’t going to be there tomorrow to be installed. Having two ales at lunch probably didn’t help, er, hurt. Zzzz.