It’s been a month since the surgery. A lot of the swelling has gone down and it’s nice to not have to wear a binder any more. That said, however, I’m still sleeping on the Lazy Boy simply because I’m less likely to roll on my sides. And since I still have a bit of swelling on my sides, it’s safer and easier for me to sleep on my “back” while in the Lazy Boy. The doc says it’ll be another couple of weeks before that swelling is completely down.
The weather is getting warmer here in Los Angeles. I was surprised how much I finally am ok with what I see in the mirror (although I’d like to get rid of my beer gut). I still can’t do full exercise but I have been trying to walk the dogs at least once a day for about 30 min. I’m hoping that I might be able to do some simple pushups, situps and simple free weight exercises in a couple of weeks. And then after a series of business meetings in the San Fran area, I’m hoping to get back into running and cycling again.
One of the things I’d really like to do is barefoot running but I probably won’t since I’m a bit of a wuss and fear cutting my feet (even though I know that with barefoot running, it can be easier to address those kinds of injuries). At the least, I’d like to do minimalist running — much like I did last summer in NYC. I truly enjoyed it and might even consider doing a 5K in the fall if I’m consistent enough with the running. To that end I’m probably going to start getting up earlier. Say around 4-5ish so that I can run/bike earlier without interfering with my work day. If I’m not teaching, that’d give me a couple of hours to do what I need. And then later in the afternoon I can do things like the situps/pushups and/or weight stuff.
I’m not sure about my bike trip for next year given what I’ve seen of people’s driving behaviours here in L.A. I still want to do it but I think I need to investigate some things more. In particular, I do need to read on other’s experience on doing this trip. It’s consider intermediate to expert. My biggest concern is timing and whether I will have enough time — 30 or so days, including weekends — to bike from Vancouver to Los Angeles. It’s the part of going over the mountains and the like that may slow it down. I may decide to avoid the issue of the border and start in Seattle instead of Vancouver. Then again, I may just push the trip back a year. One of the challenges is that I didn’t think that the recovery would take this long. I had planned on a few weeks (3-4) but more realistically, I’m looking at 2-3 months in total before I’m fully recovered. I still want to bike from L.A. to San Diego and back again over a two day period.
Anyways, on top of all that I’ve had my performance review and that went well. I’m still waiting to see what’s happening in regards to the green card. I was pleasantly surprised when my HR department started the process for me without me probing for it. I’m hopeful that it will come through and make somewhat easier for me here in the US. I wanted to take some Spanish courses at a local community college but they require that I live at least a year in California before I can apply. So I’ll be waiting until this fall before starting basic Spanish. In the meantime, I can — at the least — finally try for my driver’s license. It’s been at least 20 years since I last tried and while L.A. drivers on the freeways are scary, I think I could handle regular street traffic. I think I’ll look into AAA membership and see about taking one of their defensive driving classes.
Anyways, that’s the update so far. Life is definitely good right now.