1/31/2014 VERY Happy Lunar New Year - the Year of the Wood Horse

Oh, BOY is this a BIG day!!

It's the Lunar New Year - and big changes are promised - and apparently, it's TRUE! :)

After a long work week, and a long work DAY - then straight to dinner with friends at Tuli, just around the corner from me - I had been doing pretty well today after a couple of stiff and sore days... so I made CERTAIN yesterday and today to get up from my desk at least once an hour ( and I STUCK with it!) , do a few knee lifts and toe lifts and stretches... got round work pretty dang well today, not putting much weight on my cane at all! Several stretches just carrying it, even... Mostly I wsa stiffest when I got up, so I sat for less time! OK... - then I got to dinner, where my friends ooohed and aaahed at how great I was looking and how well I am getting around - always nice... I made sure to get up TWICE at dinner to stretch...

When we left dinner, my friend Paul Galloway said, "Ok - let's do just a FEW dance steps just so I can say I was the first one to dance with you!" and we did just a couple of quick little steps on the sidewalk in front of Tuli, but I really DID them - no limp, movin' my hips! just kind of a little two-step... but it was fun!!

Here's where it gets really good... I got home, got out of the car, carried my cane - very, very slight limp, slight pain, almost zero - took the stairs reciprocal all the way up! THEN - always mindful and focusing - I left the cane standing - walked in the kitchen, fed the cats, walked back to my room, changed clothes, went to the loo... back to the livingroom.. realized I'd left my ipad in the car - not a good idea. SO... I got brave! I threw on my jacket, and - BAREFOOT, because I COULD - I left the cane IN the apartment, reciprocated down the stairs, walked around the car to unlock it, back around to get the ipad out, *BARELY* perceptible limp, reciprocated UP the stairs just holding the rail, not pulling it - SUPPORTING MYSELF WITH BOTH LEGS.

And I did NOT over do it.

I came into the house with a HUGE grin!!!

 

I will still use my cane *sometimes* - for trips with longs stretches to walk, like big stores or the theatre... and maybe just the light, collapsible one I bought - and have one handy on the car just in case (Of course, I left the walker at the foot of my bed "Just in case" and it stood there for two weeks - I finally folded it up. :D ). But for the vast most part - I am *free*.

I will still go to PT next Wednesday, and see what they think, because I want to do this the best I possible can. But - what a feeling!!!

XOXO! 

THE BIGGEST celebration will come when I am pain-free and no longer need the cane at all - but I was so surprised!!! Someone at dinner asked me "How much longer do you think until the cane goes?" and I said, well, maybe two weeks, maybe a month - it feels different day to day... An hour later, I was leavin' it behind!!!

I can't stop grinning, and I don' wanna!!

Dear Readers - TAKE NOTE!!! THIS is where it gets REALLY good - and last Tuesday was exactly two months after my second surgery!