Three weeks after surgery

Things have improved a little bit since last week. My overall pain level has decreased. Pain is no longer a part of every minute of every day. It only hurts at night or when I'm actively exercising it. The nighttime pain isn't as bad as it used to be, so I'm sleeping a little bit better. I don't think the pain actually wakes me up at night at this point. Instead, I'll wake up for some other reason (to pee) and the leg will be hurting from being in the same position for too long. I'm not sleeping all that well, but at this point I think that has more to do with my activity level than anything else. I'm doing a lot of sitting around, so I have no reason to be tired. I never really thought about it, but cycling is a great sleep aid. There's something so satisfying about crawling into bed after a long day and sleeping like a baby. I miss that feeling.

My flexibility is getting better. I have a long way to go, but things have definitely improved. I can do all of my ROM exercises without a whole lot of pain. At first I was scared that if I stretched too far I would hurt my bones, but now when I get closer to my limit the pain feels normal. It feels more like a pain in the muscles than a pain in the bones. It almost feels like a normal stretch on my good leg, just a little bit more painful.

Here's the big news: I started doing the elliptical trainer late last week. I was working out my upper body on Thursday and I just took a look at the elliptical and decided to give it a shot. To my surprise, I could actually do it without a "limp," if you could call it that on an elliptical. It started off somewhat difficult and I was only doing 5 minutes at a time at a very slow pace. I started with a 5-minute block, then I'd take a rest and do 5 more minutes later. Since then I've worked myself up to 10 minute blocks and I even do 30 second intervals every once in a while. Granted, the intervals are weak, but they're something.

I've felt much better since Thursday. Is it because of the elliptical? Has it made me stronger? Or was I just healing with time, which made it possible for me to do the elliptical? Either way, it's a big mental win for me to be exercising again. At the same time, I am trying to be careful not to do too much.

Meanwhile, I finally got a medical bill in the mail. Before insurance, the 3 days in the hospital plus the surgery would have cost over $30,000. How much will that be after insurance? I wish I knew. Unfortunately, the whole process has been painfully slow. I have a whole bunch of claims listed on my insurance, but they're all pending and I can't look at them yet. The ambulance ride appeared this morning, 3 weeks and 2 days after the fact. The bills are going to hurt. I can promise you that. I just don't know how much they are going to hurt yet.