An Amazing Recovery

It's been seven days since the mugging, and I am pleased to be able to report that things are almost completely back to normal. We went to East Aurora on Thanksgiving as planned, Paul doing all of the 3.5 hour drive because my neck and head were sore and got stiff easily. For once we didn't have to deal with the threat of a blizzard on the drive--the weather has been beautiful for 7 days straight--sunny and 55-65 degrees. I feel like we're on spring break or something.

The company was pleasant and the food excellent. (The pies got rave reviews and Betty sent us home with two dinners' worth of leftovers!) I took my drugs dutifully as the pain was most fully developed after about 48 hours, but neither of us mentioned the mugging to anyone. This allowed me to really enjoy getting away from everything and put the whole experience in perspective. (For those of you interested in TMI details, I only took the Orphedadrine once a day right before bed, even though I could have taken it twice, and suffered no constipation.)

By Friday morning the pain was mostly just stiffness, so I was able to quit the drugs entirely after taking 1 Motrin in the morning, and I did all but one hour of the driving. We got home around 4 pm. Paul went to work on some stuff in the lab while I finished organizing the details for the service I had volunteered to lead on Sunday. Needless to say, I was just a teensy bit behind, but still managed to get it done not at the last minute.

By now I really felt the need to physically move after 2 full days of inactivity. A walk would have been ideal, but it was already dark and I was understandably hesitant to walk around the neighborhood by myself. So I did my gentlest FitPrime workout, FlexPosture, which is mostly yoga and pilates moves, and without the advanced modifications I usually do. I took it a little easy and made sure to support my head and neck more than usual when doing ab work. I felt better after.

Saturday we got up early with the intention to visit A Christmas Story House the morning of its grand opening. A Christmas Story is one of our favorite holiday movies, and it was partly filmed here. The actual house in the film is just across the river from downtown, and maybe 4-5 miles from our house. We parked at Clark Field and took a Lolly the Trolley shuttle to the house. Lolly has great sentimental memories for us--we haven't been on one since our wedding day.

When we got there, there was a line of about 100 people just waiting to buy tickets, and another snaking down the entire street and wrapping around the next block to get into the house itself. It was already 10:30 by now, and we had a dance lesson at 1:00, so we decided to just get tix (good anytime) and come back another day. Of course it was crowded--grand opening, Thanksgiving Saturday, California-like weather....

All weekend I continued to recover. I didn't even need over-the-counter pain relievers. I was able to do some cardio by Sunday and strength training today. I did take the weights down a notch, 10 lbs instead of my usual 12, but I can still do push-ups on the toes as long as there aren't too many reps. My neck is still a little not-quite-right but everything else is completely recovered. I think I bounced back this quickly partly because my body is used to stress and recovery from my workouts, and I probably would have gotten hurt more seriously if I hadn't been in shape.

I have been gradually replacing more cards. Now I have a new car insurance card, 2 grocery cards and library card. Losing the cell phone finally got me off my butt to switch us to a pay-as-you-go plan (roaming included!) which I should have done long before now. I still don't have my new credit card or ATM card yet, though, which is a major inconvenience. I had to go to a teller to deposit my paychecks and get major cash back so I could buy the cellphones, and I can't really start my holiday shopping without a credit card. Oh, well--I'm sure it will come before another week goes by, as the credit card company surely wants to make it easy to spend more money ASAP.