Road to Recovery

The human body is amazing. What it can endure, bounce back from and how quickly it heals. It’s been over 11 weeks since surgery 1 and  9 weeks since surgery 2 and I am thrilled to finally have my “restrictions removed”. And each new movement, whether it’s in the gym or outside of it may feel slow and awkward, but eventually it feels normal again. 

Thankfully the past 2 months have been a blur of activity and fun.

The first few weeks were full of hiking, Hunger Games, my first beer and other random adventures. Oh and healing from surgery! 

November 21st we spent the weekend in Denver while Tony and a few friends competed in a Crossfit comp. I was so jealous to not be participating (except when they were doing burpees in puddles outside in the freezing cold). But it sure lit a fire under my butt for when I would get back to the gym. There’s nothing like watching other people work out to get you all revved up to hit PRs and get your butt kicked. J  And. Tony took second place at the Turkey Challenge too! So proud and happy to see his hard work paying off.

After the Turkey Challenge the holiday season began. We started it off in Grand Junction with my sister and her family, and my brother-in-law's family.  

The next day we hoped on a jet and journeyed to Santa Cruz, California for Thanksgiving with Tony’s extended family.  It was so great to see our aunts, uncles, cousins and many loved ones. It was a weekend full of cards, food, laughter and great conversations. And because I’d never been to Santa Cruz we did the touristy things, like the boardwalk, watching the surfers, whale watching while the sun came up….and watching Boise State play San Jose.

On December 4^th we had a small get together for my 29^th birthday and it was my first night of being intoxicated since April. During the day I hiked my favorite trail, Mushroom Rock and it was hot enough to be in a tank top! Later with all our friends we played some cards and Mariokart ßwhere I almost had a perfect 16-0 game, but I lost on Rainbow Road. Damn you Connor! The evening then progressed into late night dancing at Phat Thai for Carbondale’s First Friday.

We spent the next few weeks working out, attending Christmas parties, skinning (I only went halfway up the hill, once it got steep I turned around because the risk of falling was too great), hikes and other fun events. 

And then on December 13^th Becca (Tony’s sister) and I drove to Boise, where the real whirlwind began.In Boise I was busy working, which was so fun to be in the office and see all my coworkers. In the evenings I was attending dinners with friends and family and of course Crossfitting. I had a lot of different gyms to attend to see lots of different people. 

Tony made it to town on December 19^th, just in time for the Mather Christmas party. This was my second night of late night dancing and a time to connect with all my friends that I miss and hadn’t seen in a while! We are so lucky to have so many great friends, family and acquaintances. And I took my mom downtown for her first time ever! We even took her dancing at the Balcony. :) 

The next week we headed to one of my most favorite places ever, my family cabin in Donnelly, Idaho. It had been a few years since I had been back there in the snow and man did I miss it! And holy crap, did we have a crazy amount of snow! Like more snow then we have seen in a long long time. I didn't even bring my snowboard to Idaho because I didn't want to get tempted and go snowboarding. Per my surgeon my restrictions were removed but Tony and I didn't know if it would be a good idea for me to risk falling. So here's the deal, I was really really good during my rehab. I never pushed it, I listened to my body and all went well. That week I was getting a lot of movement back and doing really good in and out of the gym. So when my most favorite resorts ever, my home resorts, got dumped on, well, I went snowboarding. And it was SO worth it! That was the best two days of riding I have had in like 6 years. Epic awesomeness! The snow was deep and light, my body felt safe and fine, and I had lots of good friends to shred with, life was great! 

Besides the great snowboarding we also did some Crossfit, played lots of games, relaxed in the hot tub, and ventured outside for other winter activities. And shoveled, a lot! 

We finished out the Christmas vacation with my family and again, it was full of lots of other Cabin adventures, like cross country skiing, snowmobiling, lots of cards, and taking a sleigh ride to see some wild elk. I also spent about 4 hours coloring in my nephew's Harry Potter coloring book. I was so happy to see my 4 nephews (and I think they were happy to see me with hair on my head).

On Monday December 28th we drove back to Carbondale from Boise. When we were in Salt Lake we decided to drop by Ute Crossfit to get a workout in, and guess what? 1 of my 2 favorite male crossfitters was there! Yes, he may be the owner of Ute but I never thought he would be there (especially since they have 3 locations). And even better, he worked out with us! I kept my cool...I think...but I did ask for a picture afterwards. It was a great cap to our trip. 

Back in Colorado the festivities continued at a super fun, late night New Year's Eve party. The next day after a huge diner breakfast we got out for a gorgeous, but cold walk. 

We had a super fun holiday season but I will say we are excited to get back into the swing of things. I made a vision board for 2016 as I am very eager to have an epic and fun year. What are your visions for 2016? 

Nitty Gritty Details of my Rehab:

Surgery 2 went really well. It was a lot longer than they planned but it was successful and that’s all that mattered. She was thankfully able to get 450 cc in, because they seem to be a little smaller than my real boobs, but I am happy with them. I know I’m not that picky, but she did great work! You can’t really see the scar and the boobs themselves look just fine. I have this weird “pucker” happening but we believe it’s just from my pec muscle being so tight right now and will eventually even out. Even in the past few weeks it has smoothed out a lot already. 

I had a surgery on Thursday and was off the pain meds by Saturday and off Tylenol a few days after that. It was not painful, and I was not nearly as tight as I was after the mastectomy. The boobs were a little weird to get used to and felt foreign to me.

Tony got me set up to see some of the physical therapists at his Carbondale office and I had about 6 visits. We did not begin this until about 4 weeks after surgery. This was sooo helpful. Tony could have given me the info and exercises at home but it was really good to go into the office and have them spend an hour doing soft tissue work on my pectoral muscles. They were really tight from the surgery so they worked on loosening them up and then they would send me home with lots of stretches and exercises to do at home. I tried to be diligent in doing those exercises as I was determined to get my range of motion back as quick as possible. And it was pretty cool to see how it did come back.

For my physical body changes- the nails are almost fully healed. And I have a lot of hair on my head! Hair that is starting to turn more brown than silver. 

Crossfitting and Adventuring:

My plastic surgeon did great work and that is all that matters but she was not very helpful when it came to my rehab. I was just told, “don’t lift more than 10 pounds for 6 weeks and don’t do exercise that would elevate my heart rate for 4-6 weeks.” So, with the help of my husband who sometimes was a little more conservative than I wanted, we figured out our own plan of action for my exercise routine. From surgery (11/5/15) to 11/16/15 I didn't do any workouts, just light hiking around the area (some of which was steep though). After 11/16 I slowly started adding in some workouts, very light and easy to begin with. I’ll be posting another blog post of all the workouts I did from April to current, but here’s a quick recap of when I hit some milestone movements and weights post surgery.

2nd Surgery was: 11/5/15 

• First Ring Row: 12/8
• Rowing: 12/1 was first time rowing, but I didn't use my arms much. On 12/15 I went much harder on row. 
• First time touching a barbell: 12/1 and it felt so good to just hold it in my hands! Did some 45 pound backsquats. 
• Wall ball: 12/1 did 2 for 1s but let ball drop and only did 10#. 1/6 I did 14# to 9 foot target and felt fine. 
• First time hanging on a bar: 12/19. Felt very scary and hard! Definitely pulled on my chest as it opened it up. 
• First pushup (on knees):12/17
• First pullup (with a band): 12/22. I did 20 strict pullups with a green and red band.
• First unassisted pullup (kipping): 1/5, did 3 in a row! 
• First Toes to Bar: 1/6 I went in to do 14.4 at the gym. I assumed I would have to do lying T2B since  the day before I didn't even feel that comfortable hanging from the bar. But I ended up doing all 50 in the workout! 
• Snatch: 12/21 I did 55# squat snatch for 2. On 12/22 did 75# power snatch for 10 reps, 3 rounds. Squat snatch is much harder as it opens my chest a lot more than power does. On 1/4 I did 100# Snatch, a power and a squat. Felt great! 
• Clean: Did 6# medball cleans on 12/12. Did 65# power cleans on 12/19. 12/21 hit 135# for a squat clean. Did #95 in a workout on 1/6. 
• First Overhead Squat: 12/16 did 15#. 12/30 did 55# for 20 reps in a workout. And 1/4 did 100# overhead squat.
• Thruster: 55# on 12/30, did 20 reps. 
• Press, Pushpress, Jerk: 12/16 did 5 reps of 30# for strict press. On 12/21 did 10 reps of push press at 75#. On 1/4 I did 5 reps of 105#.  1/2 I did 65# push jerk in a workout (10 reps for 3 rounds). #115 split jerk on 1/4.
• First Intense workout:12/12 
• First box jump (rebounding): 12/18 
• First time running: 12/19 I did 200 meters in a workout, 3 rounds.
• Burpee:  First one that was stepping back and “worming” down and up: 12/15. Full burpee of jumping back and jumping up: 12/22
• Double unders: 12/15 was first time. 
• KB Swings: 12/24 did 26# and 12/29 did 1 pood. 
• Deadlift: 45# deadlifts in an AMRAP on 12/4. Did sumo deadlifts for 5 reps at 145#. On 12/28 did 3 reps at 185#.
• HSPU: 1/2 I did 5 in a row with about 1.5-2 pads. 
• Handstand and handstand walking: 1/2 I did handstand holds and felt great. Then tried to walk (I love handstand walking) and that was too much stretching and/or pressure on my chest so I immediately stopped. 
• First dip: With a green band did 5 dips on 12/30.

I remember on 11/24 doing a few overhead squats with a PVC pipe and wow, was I tight! It was amazing how hard it was to do and I almost couldn't do it. I had to have my hands sooo wide and the pipe was actually touching my head. But within a month I could do one with a barbell. My mobility still isn't back completely but it's come a long long ways and it is amazing how quickly things do come back. 

So if you are headed into surgery, or if you are in recovery, have faith and put in the time to do your exercises and stretches, you'll get there! You will have lots of ups and downs. Some days I am so exited because I feel like I am making so much progress. And then other days I feel so far from it. Hell, yesterday at the gym the skill portion was muscle ups. Just trying to hold in a static position on top of the rings was so hard....and it made my boobs look super weird. :). I don't care about the boobs, but I was frustrated that it was so difficult to just hold myself there. And then the workout was 14.4 and I thought for sure I would have to do lying T2B. Well I did everything RX and I was only 3 reps behind my 2014 score, so yippee! The point is, just keep swimming. :)