When a PT Rehabs

Let me tell you where I am right now.

Things started to fall apart for me healthwise in 2019. I had hip pain that was getting bad enough that I had to have the hip surgeries and both labrums reconstructed in 2020.

Turns out, there were a few other things also going on in 2020, and my entire routine was thrown off, not just by the surgeries and the LONG recoveries (6 months for many activities and more like a year for full healing. For each hip.)

In 2021, I was starting to get a little more active again, but there was so much smoke all summer long, that I wasn’t able to hike or even be outside most of the summer.

I had 3 surgeries this summer. They were all ostensibly only a couple of weeks of recovery. It’s true that I felt nearly normal after a couple of weeks, but I would argue that surgery and anesthesia cause more problems than what we realize. I have noticed that I get sick more easily and there seem to be more things that slow me down. Oh, yeah, and if this never ending cold goes away, I have one more (hopefully last!) surgery in a couple of weeks.

I am around 25-30 pounds overweight.

I’m struggling to climb 5.8’s in the gym (if you’re not a climber, that doesn’t mean much to you, but a few years ago, I could climb 5.9’s easily, and was working on 5.10’s).

I’m struggling with my workouts. Partly getting them in, but more so that when I do them, even when I take it easy, I seem to injure myself easily.

My hiking limit is about 8 miles if there’s not too much elevation change or too high of elevation, and even then I’m sure to have the wrong kind of pain afterwards (joint pain). Compared to a few years ago, I when I was able to hike up to 18 miles with 8,000 feet of elevation change and not have much more than muscle soreness afterwards.

I can easily get up and down from the floor with my hands, but struggle to get up if not using my hands.

My right foot has pain in the arch that seems to be easily aggravated with too much standing or walking.

My hips are still a little off. My flexibility, especially into extension, isn’t great, and my right hip seems to have relatively frequent, though mild, complaints. I feel my right hip if I have been sitting too much and sometimes with walking and hiking. Occasionally the left hip also likes to complain a bit with hiking. I also feel the right hip sometimes when I am lying on my side.

I have some thyroid problems that need to be sorted out.

Problem or Fact of Life?

As you can see, there are a lot of things, but while I’m not where I want to be, I could certainly be worse. Many of these things are the type of complaint that if you go to the doctor and talk about it, they’ll say things like “Well, that’s just how it is after surgery,” or “you are over 40 now, you know.”

I understand that I am not going to be able to fix everything 100%, but I disagree with accepting status quo.

And so, this PT is going to rehab.

It is about working on my hips, but also overall strength, endurance and health. I believe that if we get a little healthier each day, we can make more progress than we (or the doctors!) knew was possible. I strongly believe that if we give our bodies what they need, they will do a LOT more work to heal than what we typically expect. While there may be some medicine, supplements, corrective exercises, and, yes, even another surgery along the way, I don’t think that those are the things that will really make the biggest difference. It’s the way you live your life day to day that makes the real difference.

Here. We. Go.