In the spirit of the holiday, your cruising correspondent has risen Lazarus like from near death and is ready to resume cruising.
I had several days which were not only pain free but at a lower level of stiffness and discomfort than I have lived with through the whole trip. I went in and told the PT’s that, although I knew there was much more we could do to reduce my vulnerability to these events in the future, I felt I could pick that up again in Maine and I simply needed to get on with my life. They put me through all the exercises and did some diagnostics and agreed that I was good to go with care. The urged me though to take it easy and get crew as much as I can for a while.
I probably am less vulnerable to having this happen again than I have been throughout the whole cruise now that I am doing targeted exercises and more aware of how I am using my body. Certainly, my back feels better and more solid than it has since I left Portland last July.
How did this miracle occur? I had the benefit of being used as a teaching moment for a student PT since my case is a bit unusual so I can explain it better than I might have.
There was not a single underlying cause for this event. The arthritis itself does not make me more vulnerable. It simply increases the pain when I aggravate the SI joint. I have spent 60 years walking in a way that greatly stresses it. I’m learning to change that. What I will most work on when I get back to PT is fine tuning my walking. It’s hard to unlearn 60 years of habit.
I have an old injury to the joint, the effects with have lingered over a decade due to my not properly taking care of it at the time. Protecting the joint over the years taught me not to use certain muscles with got weak making the joint unstable.
I probably would have been able to go on at a low level of background pain that I had come to take for granted. However, a perfect storm of stress on the joint caused it to blow up into major inflammation. As a result of this experience, I will certainly end up stronger and more pain free than before.
My rapid recovery is due to being in good shape and living an active life combined with the ability (Thanks to Becky) to stop, rest completely, and do nothing except focus on the PT and the exercises. People who have to keep on working, take care of kids, and keep up with normal life take a lot longer. That was my situation when I first injured my back a decade ago and I didn’t carry through on the exercises.
Barbara and I restocked the boat with food yesterday which was quite a bit of carrying, stowing, and twisting after an intensive last PT session. I was woken up in the middle of the night by ominous noises from the dock and found the fender board snagged under the piling fendering with a lifeline stanchion pressed hard against a piling. I dressed and went out tired, cold, and stiff to do some very stressful things curled up and twisted in the dark. I was thinking that, if anything was going to set me back to two weeks ago, this was it. There wasn’t any alternative though except to straighten it out. I went back to bed and realized I had forgotten to take any Aspirin as a preventative measure. I lay there trying to work myself up to getting back out of the berth but fell asleep.
I woke up this morning with slight discomfort in my back and a little stiff but no more than most mornings in the past few months. The boat is all ready to go so I’m going to rest and do my exercises over the weekend. Jimm and Ron20234 are coming over Monday morning to sail with me to Annapolis for a few days. After that, I’m back to wandering around according to whim until it’s time to head for Maine.
I had several days which were not only pain free but at a lower level of stiffness and discomfort than I have lived with through the whole trip. I went in and told the PT’s that, although I knew there was much more we could do to reduce my vulnerability to these events in the future, I felt I could pick that up again in Maine and I simply needed to get on with my life. They put me through all the exercises and did some diagnostics and agreed that I was good to go with care. The urged me though to take it easy and get crew as much as I can for a while.
I probably am less vulnerable to having this happen again than I have been throughout the whole cruise now that I am doing targeted exercises and more aware of how I am using my body. Certainly, my back feels better and more solid than it has since I left Portland last July.
How did this miracle occur? I had the benefit of being used as a teaching moment for a student PT since my case is a bit unusual so I can explain it better than I might have.
There was not a single underlying cause for this event. The arthritis itself does not make me more vulnerable. It simply increases the pain when I aggravate the SI joint. I have spent 60 years walking in a way that greatly stresses it. I’m learning to change that. What I will most work on when I get back to PT is fine tuning my walking. It’s hard to unlearn 60 years of habit.
I have an old injury to the joint, the effects with have lingered over a decade due to my not properly taking care of it at the time. Protecting the joint over the years taught me not to use certain muscles with got weak making the joint unstable.
I probably would have been able to go on at a low level of background pain that I had come to take for granted. However, a perfect storm of stress on the joint caused it to blow up into major inflammation. As a result of this experience, I will certainly end up stronger and more pain free than before.
My rapid recovery is due to being in good shape and living an active life combined with the ability (Thanks to Becky) to stop, rest completely, and do nothing except focus on the PT and the exercises. People who have to keep on working, take care of kids, and keep up with normal life take a lot longer. That was my situation when I first injured my back a decade ago and I didn’t carry through on the exercises.
Barbara and I restocked the boat with food yesterday which was quite a bit of carrying, stowing, and twisting after an intensive last PT session. I was woken up in the middle of the night by ominous noises from the dock and found the fender board snagged under the piling fendering with a lifeline stanchion pressed hard against a piling. I dressed and went out tired, cold, and stiff to do some very stressful things curled up and twisted in the dark. I was thinking that, if anything was going to set me back to two weeks ago, this was it. There wasn’t any alternative though except to straighten it out. I went back to bed and realized I had forgotten to take any Aspirin as a preventative measure. I lay there trying to work myself up to getting back out of the berth but fell asleep.
I woke up this morning with slight discomfort in my back and a little stiff but no more than most mornings in the past few months. The boat is all ready to go so I’m going to rest and do my exercises over the weekend. Jimm and Ron20234 are coming over Monday morning to sail with me to Annapolis for a few days. After that, I’m back to wandering around according to whim until it’s time to head for Maine.
