Bionic Woman

Better, stronger, faster. Well I’m none of those things at the moment, but I do seem to be healing pretty well. Last week I was back at work doing half days, which was pretty tiring, but I did manage a couple more rides on my trainer. I also had a couple of doctor’s appointments and finally found some information out about how long I’ll be in my robo-arm and what sort of stuff I can be doing. The best bit was I got to see my metalwork, I have lots of stuff in my elbow. More importantly I got a referral to physio (more on that later).

My lovely man has splashed out and bought me a new computer for my roadie which measures cadence (RPM) and brought me home some intense training dvds for me to play with while I’m stuck riding inside (thanks Paul). Unfortunately I’m not really up to putting in a proper training effort and can only handle the warm up session before I’m exhausted and needing a lie down. Feeling like a nana isn’t the best, but at least I can do something. Still it gives me some good goals to work towards so I’m enjoying it.
Further excitement occurred at the weekend when I got out of the house!! Shock horror. We drove out to Omihi in North Canterbury and helped get the Vulcaniser course ready for the race this weekend. I was intrigued to see how I would handle walking up and down hills for a few hours and amazingly I handled it pretty well and only had to rest a couple of times on the return journey. On top of that encouraging progress I discovered I’ve really got a knack for sticking pig-tails in the ground. Such a useful skill.

It was fantastic to get out and do something bike related with a really wonderful group of people, even if it did make me a little sad that I couldn’t have a ride on the fantastic track myself. After all that fresh air (and gale force winds) I was pleasantly tired out and finally had a decent nights sleep. Yay.

This morning I had a physio appointment at the hospital, just what I’ve been waiting for. It went fantastically and the news from the physio was all good. My range of movement improved massively while I was there and although it hurt like hell I was grinning the whole time. It turns out the information I got from the doctor last week was also wrong. So now I have to take my brace off at least 3 times a day and practice straightening and bending my arm, I have to take it off in the shower, I have to take it off if I’m just watching TV. Yeah baby, I am so happy about that. My mood was further improved with the news that I should be able to be out on my bike in about 6 weeks. Hmmmmm, maybe Mt Somers is a realistic goal after all. So all in all, things are progressing extremely well and I’ll be back riding to work in no time. Driving really does suck a lot.