Tick tock!

I have not blogged in a while! This has been largely because life has been really busy working full time essentially now and continuing to try and be as active as possible in the other time, whilst also ensuring I get a sensible amount of rest time. This week I have passed the 9 month mark and I have to admit the last few months have possibly been the hardest despite things continuing to move in the right direction. I guess that is because as time passes, expectations subconsciously increase as does the frustration at realising that it will still take some time. It is also harder to notice the improvements, which can be a good thing too. As we approach the end of the year it really does feel like this process has been going on all year now (plus the few years before the op of course!)

Quick summary of how things have progressed... I can now generally sit for an hour or so before I feel the need to get up, and over a day I have been sitting for about 3 hours a day with the occasional non-sitting day to give things a reprieve. Having said that, this week I have found out that it is still quite easy to do too much and get some aggravation. At least I hope that is what it is!! I assume it is the internal scar tissue that is saying it has had enough, and I hope this will reduce over time so that I can continue to sit more and more. It is pretty disconcerting even at this stage though as the pain is into the same area as it was pre-surgery. And because the body is so good at forgetting what that pain was actually like (usually an advantage) it is easy to get nagging doubts in your mind. In terms of activities I am still swimming twice a week, doing yoga, occasional light gym work and walking as much as possible. I feel in pretty decent shape actually and am so glad that I started all of that as soon as I could. 

On the downside... My glutes, lower back and deep pelvic muscles have developed quite a few trigger points that are proving hard to get rid of. The physio thinks this is most likely the result of the prolonged standing I have been doing over 6 plus months back at work, causing fatigue in the muscles and accentuating any imbalance. This means that jogging and ball sports are still out of the question as I think the impact would kick things off. Probably related to this is my earlier point about it being a long year/process - I am pretty tired and definitely feeling a little bit impatient for the first time. We went to Spain for a week a few weeks back which was great but it has not taken long to feel fairly exhausted again!

So despite the bigger picture of continued progress it has actually been quite a frustrating time. Getting the balance right between sitting and standing and rest and exercise is a tricky one - made even more tricky with a computer based job. However, I hope that over time and ignoring the odd blip I continue to be able to sit more and more and the problems caused by the standing will just ebb away. Once this happens I hope that it will have quite a significant change as the way we relax is to sit down and rest and forget about some of the everyday stresses that come up. Doing that lay on your sides with sore hips, glutes, legs and feet is not really that relaxing!! I will blog again when there is more to report, ideally with that apt title I have in mind. In the meantime, onwards and upwards - and ideally sat down!