June 20, 2008
Dr visit & more therapy
I visited the surgeon a couple weeks ago. He basically said “keep up the good work.” I have definitely made improvements but I feel like I should be much further along than I am. My left side is definitely worse than my right, more in terms of flexibility than strength but also in terms of pain levels. There are two main reasons for this:
1) During the time I was supposed to be getting into my later-stage therapy on the left side, I was recovering from my right hip surgery. So I couldn’t keep the pace I had been on and ended up losing flexibility as I spent so much time supporting all my weight standing on the left side while minimizing the weight on my right leg.
2) I do not have much cartilage left on either side but much less on my left. So I will never be completely without pain in my left hip.
I have been gradually increasing the length and intensity of my karate workouts and have been doing a little more biking. I will be taking part in a fund-raising 50-mile bike ride in about a month. So I will be riding more in the coming weeks to prepare for that. As it stands now, I feel the reduced strength on my left side and also pain in my left hip but it is not bad when riding at a medium pace (faster than normal/casual riders but not as fast as those who bike every day and have bikes that cost 10 times what mine is worth) for < 10 miles. We will soon see how things go when I increase to 10-15 miles per ride within the next week…