Resume Normal Exercise

The past week has in many ways marked the return to normalcy in my life, but it's also proven that there is no single clear boundary to mark the end of my mastectomy recovery. I returned to officially working full-time this week, although mounting fatigue and a nasty cold meant the last half of it were working from home. I passed the two-week post-op mark on Thursday where I removed the final layer of tape from my incisions and became officially allowed to raise my arms above a 45-degree angle, although I had realistically already been back to blow-drying my hair and wearing pull-over shirts for a week. Likewise, I have two upcoming milestones at the four-week mark: I can switch from wearing a surgical bra 24 hours a day to wearing the wireless bra of my choice, and I can "resume normal exercise."

Could there be any more fraught statement than the latter? Although it is entertaining to speculate into the intent of those instructions, I am 99% sure that lifting weights twice a week and chattering down steep, rocky surfaces on a bike the rest of the time is not what the author had in mind. I also know that there's no way that I'll be able to do that again in two weeks. The question is, when will I be?

I haven't and probably won't bother having that conversation with my plastic surgeon. I don't expect that it would lead anywhere productive, and it would likely only increase my frustration with this situation. As with many so many things in the past couple of weeks, I just need to move on with my life. I restart physical therapy on Monday, so hopefully, that will provide more practical guidance on my path to being an athlete again.

With all that in mind, I ventured onto that path yesterday. I managed to remain sedentary for the two-week post-op period that seems to be the most critical after implant placement, but I decided that I would start testing my boundaries after that was over. I formed this deadline in my mind based on the combination of the two-week milestones from my own post-op instructions and anecdotal evidence from other cyclists who had over-the-muscle reconstruction.* Once again, don't try this at home, kids.

I was at the point where nothing hurt anymore, and although I'm still very stiff and have not yet come to terms with the numbness. Basically, I was at the point where I realized my body will never feel the way it did before, so I wanted to start making peace with how it did feel, rather than sitting around waiting for something that I wasn't even sure what it was.

I like to think Rothrock missed my obnoxious colors.

So yesterday I rode my mountain bike on the easiest trails I could find because I wanted to know how it would feel. We drove to Cooper's Gap and parked at the shale pit. This meant a decently steep one-mile gravel climb, followed by another gentle mile of singletrack climbing before we turned around and descended back again. I had intended to climb the entirety of the Dutch Alvin trail, but when we reached the first intersection, I decided that the two-mile climb was a sufficient test for the first time out.

How was it? Satisfying and a little scary. I'm obviously super out of shape, both in how heavily I was breathing on the climb and the way my shoulders and butt are sore this morning. I tried to be careful not to strain my chest muscles the too much the first time out, which meant that I was afraid to pull hard enough to go over a four-inch log. Afterward, my incisions were a bit irritated from my heart rate monitor, and there were a few tender spots in various areas of my chest, so I decided to wait a few more days before I try riding again.

Although yesterday's ride was proof that I'm a long way from where I want to be, at least now I feel like I'm somewhere.

Also, Specialized had to go and release this Mix Tape edition Stumpjumper while I was at the height of post-op depression, so I was like, "Thank You, Next."

*Side note: If I had one thing that I would do differently about all of this, I would have at least looked into finding a surgeon that was comfortable and skilled in over-the-muscle reconstruction. Unfortunately, the surgeon I used referred to it as looking "like a ball stuffed into a sock," so I did not consider it as a viable option until I spoke with someone who had chosen that option just a couple of days before my mastectomy. Considering my mental state at the time, the conversation spun me into a full-on panic as I worried that I was making a terrible, unfixable decision by going with under-the-muscle reconstruction.

Although OTM reconstruction has a faster recovery time, if I would have pursued a different surgeon in a bigger city, the delay in scheduling my surgeries would have eaten up all of the time saved until now. Right now it seems like I'm "done" just as fast as I would be with OTM, but I'm still a little nervous that the disadvantages will come to light as I tried to rebuild my chest strength in the coming months.