Are We There Yet?

I have spent the better part of the past 3 days feeling sorry for myself.  I am not walking perfectly.  My inner thigh is grabbing every now and again.  I can't play football in the snow with my boys.  I can't ride my bike in the snow because I am afraid of falling on my hip and setting my recovery back. 

I think I should be better by now.  I have done all this work for 8 months and I am not 100% better yet. 

Then I read an article last night a woman who took 4 years to recover from a car accident.  She recovered fully but it took her 4 years.  4 years!  This made me think about time and recovery.  Ask a doctor how it will take a 37 year old man to fully recover from a hip fracture and he will spout out some canned answer that is nothing more than a best guess.  Ask a PT and you get a different answer.  The real answer is that no one really knows how long it takes to recover from anything.  Every surgery is different, every body is different.

So what do you do?  You give yourself time.  Take the ups and downs and give it time.  In a world of instant gratification, we have lost the concept of time.  Some things take longer than the time it takes to load a web page.  We aren't professional athletes with a host of resources at our fingertips.  So we need to give ourselves more time than we think.  And in that time frame we need to make steady incremental progress.  Find a recovery plan that works and stick with it.  Clean up your diet and stick with it.  Make sure you sleep enough.  Keep your stress in check.  And stick with it.

For me, I am going to give myself 2 years.  I believe in power of kettlebells to make me stronger.  I believe in the power of my massage therapist to work out the kinks and reduce the scar tissue.  I believe in my surgeon to give me good advice.  And I believe in myself to make the right decisions.  And I believe my body will recover.  In time.

And if it takes 2 years or 4 years, it doesn't matter.  Because as they say, "The only way you fail, is if you quit."

So don't quit.  Just give it time.

Thanks for reading...