Walking Spirit

The stretching continues. Unfortunately my Prosthetist was unable to get me in for the fitting until this week, so that will actually be happening later today. This past Sunday I decided to treat myself to a late breakfast from Panera Bread. I got cleaned up, hopped in the car, and went on my way.

About half way to Panera I realized that I had forgotten to breakdown my wheelchair and put it in the car. This meant I would have no way to get into Panera when I got there! Normally I use a different wheelchair in the house and the light weight, collapsible, wheelchair stays in the car. Since the surgery I've been using the light weight wheelchair in the house, which is why I forgot to break it down when I left.

So instead of going to Panera I decided to go through the drive thru at Dunkin' Donut's, get some coffee and donuts, and take them home to eat on the deck. It was such a beautiful day that I decided to spend some time in the hammock reading a magazine after I was done with my breakfast. During breakfast I had a few muscle spasms in my left leg, which happens occasionally, but they weren't to bad. However, at about 12:30pm, while I was relaxing in the hammock, a muscle spasm hit that made me sit up, grab my leg, and scream out in pain. It didn't last long, so I laid back down and continued the article I was reading.

The next spasm hit about five minutes later, with enough intensity to make me lose my breath for a moment. I decided to get out of the hammock and try to stretch out. I normally do that first thing in the morning, but had changed my routine by getting donuts and spending time in the hammock. The next spasm hit about ten minutes later, shortly after I had stretched out. This time I lost control of my mouth and screamed out all sorts of obscenities.

I had the windows and doors open, so I can only imagine what the neighbors thought! Over the next thirty minutes I tried to stretch but was interrupted about every five to ten minutes by these painful spasms. I finally decided to try ice. The ice helped slow the spasms down, but I was still having them about every fifteen to twenty minutes. Of course, with each spasm the screaming, cussing, and fast breathing continued.

I tried heat next. This gave me about thirty minutes of peace between spasms, but once the heat wore off the spasms were back in full force. When Jamie got home from work he walked in to one of my more aggressive outburst. After he'd been home about an hour he asked if I thought I needed to go to the hospital. This was the last thing I wanted to do; you all know why!

At about 6:30pm I finally decided to take some Vicodin to see what affect narcotics might have on the spasms. The spasms didn't entirely go away, but the pain did. Until about 11:30pm, when the Vicodin wore off and the pain returned in full force. So, I took more Vicodin and went to sleep. Another painful spasm awakened me at about 4:30am and, after spooking the cat with my outburst, I took some more Vicodin and went back to sleep.

I woke up at about 8:00am on Monday and, after the cat and I had our breakfast, I went right into my stretching routine. No issues with spasms until about 1:00pm, when I had a spasm that threatened to be as intense as the ones I'd suffered the day before. I immediately took some Vicodin and haven't had any issues since.

Occasionally I'll still have a spasm, but they are no where near as intense as the ones I had on Sunday. I think that the spasms are my muscles reacting to all the stretching that I've been doing lately. I'm finally seeing a maintained improvement in the range of motion of my hip. It's not perfect yet, but I don't think it will be until I'm walking on a daily basis. Unfortunately, that may not be until mid September now, but I think it'll be worth the wait!