I admit it, I've been discouraged. After total hip replacement surgery March 5th, my second (and hopefully last), I'd lost the walker, finished with the cane, started working out on my indoor exercycle, but couldn't get on my outdoor bicycle. Not too long ago, my husband and neighbor Jim Tate tried to help steady me as I tried, but I just couldn't do it.
This morning Jim broached the subject of my resigning myself to not riding tomorrow on a scheduled MelonHead ride. I was so mad I put on my helmet and a jacket and put my leg over the bike and rode it down the block. I was thinking hard about something else and just did it. I knew I was close to being able to do it. I told him I was close, and here he was giving up on me. I hadn't given up on me.
We're popping a bottle of champagne tonight to celebrate.
I don't know what it will cost me in pain to ride tomorrow, but I'm riding anyway to get back into the swing of things. It's important to feel normal, and I want to feel like my old self again and headed toward another RAGBRAI.
The funny thing is, mad as I was at Jim, he wrote on my hospital room whiteboard under post-surgery goals, "May 3rd" for a bike ride. I got on my bicycle and rode it for the first time May 2nd, almost to the day he predicted. The ride is tomorrow, May 3rd.
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