On Top of Old Islay

Yesterday I hiked up Islay Hill, a small hill at the southeast end of San Luis Obispo. Not a huge challenge for the average person, and really it wasn't a huge challenge for me but enough of one. My fitbit tells me I hiked 44 "floors", which translates to about 440 feet, a new record for me (since I've had the fitbit, and since I've had knee surgery).

I was surprised at how well I was able to make the climb. I admit I was huffing and puffing a little, and the last portion was a bit of a strain as it is steeper, but with my trusty hiking stick I felt confident. It was only when I started downhill that my body let me know it has had better times. I felt the shock of each step at first, as I descended the steeper portion, and when it flattened more I still felt more discomfort than I'd had climbing up.

When I got home after the hike I found it funny that I did the two-step climbing the few steps into my house, after climbing so many more steps shortly before. Perhaps my joints were cooled off by then, or, likely, there was some swelling in my legs.

This morning I was stiffer than usual and at physical therapy I found some moves to be more painful than usual, particularly the hip machine when I was pushing the weight up with my bent knee.

The picture on the right shows approximately what it looks like. I don't kick my leg up quite that high - but it's something to shoot for.

I don't plan to do this hike again right away. It took me 54 minutes up and 40 minutes down. Quite slow! Others get up there in a half hour or less, and I have seen a number of persons running the trail. Well, good for them! I won't be joining them. I will hike it again, but later, later, when I feel a little stronger. I feel good that I did it, that I felt strong, even though I am paying for it now.

Alternating day hip issues?

The day after I did the stoneridge hike I was in sewing class. My hip hurt the entire time. I limped around the classroom and kitchen. I tried to walk normally but it hurt too much.

I'm wondering if my hip acts up the day after I have given it a challenge like the hike. Yesterday I did a two-mile hike, longer than stoneridge but flatter. The total amount of rise was about 40 feet, stretched over the two miles.

That hike was different in other ways, too. It was next to the coast, in Cambria. I hiked in the fog. It was wide and easy to negotiate the whole way.

The path alternates between boardwalk and decomposed granite

Sea birds on a rock in the ocean

I met several people on the trail, with and without dogs. With and without cell phones.

By the time I turned around, at the end, I was feeling a little done in. I realized that it has been a very long time since walking was completely comfortable, effortless, for me. I felt stiff and my hip pain came and went. It was a strain to walk. So although I made an effort to stride on back I can't say I loved it. I think that when I take on more challenging trails I can be distracted from the discomfort by the rocks and height, by just taking the next step. So in a way the flat hikes are harder.

But back to the question. After a hike do I suffer extended hip pain? It seems yes. Today again I am hurting and it won't go away. I went to an aqua aerobics class, hoping that it would loosen it up, but no. Then I went to Costco to pick up a prescription and partway through thought that perhaps I should have at least taken my cane.

Ghostly rocks

There are many fat squirrels out here.

My fitbit says I have taken 1619 steps so far today. My goal is to take 5,000 per day, but if I do not hike I don't usually make that goal. With my hip hurting I am not likely to hike today. I will stay home and clean up, best as I can, in short increments of time. Clean, sit, clean more, sit.

Getting Out There

Leki hiking pole

Finally, yesterday I went into Mountain Air Sports and bought me the only hiking pole they had, which is pictured on this page. They had several trekking poles, the pairs, but I just wanted a hiking stick. With this I can go to the next level.

And so I did. Yesterday afternoon I ventured out with my new pole to do the Stoneridge trail. This is a shortish trail that I used to do frequently. It is close to my house and not very long but is a bit of a hike up. According to my fitbit I climbed 23 "floors" or approximately 230 feet on this hike.

It was late afternoon. The hike is rocky, almost all rock. I used the pole to help me both going up and going down. On the way I stopped a few times to take pictures, but because of the way the hill is positioned it was mostly in shade. Shady rocky trail, late afternoon, not much chance for dramatic photos.

It had been about three years, maybe more, since I'd done this hike. I remember having to stop to catch my breath and to find my way through the rocks. I did not have to catch my breath so much this time and my knees, while a bit stiff, did not hurt.

California Poppy

Few flowers were out. I grabbed a quick photo of some poppies.

And climbed. In the picture below you can just see a person at the top. She came down with her two dogs, which I greeted. She was the only person I met on the way. While well-traveled, this trail does not get the hoards some other trails in the area do.

Going up went easily with the pole. I usually choose the "back way" down, and this was more challenging. I would have found it more so without the pole. At times, when faced with craggy steps down, where I don't feel stable, I have actually slid down on my butt. I am happy to say I did not feel the need this time.

But it was a bit slower going than I'd like and a few times I had to work my way down very carefully. I was glad there weren't others on the trail, impatiently wanting to get past me.

At the very beginning, which is the remains of an asphalt road, and at the end, on that same road, my hip bothered me. But in between it hardly made a peep. My body prefers the "softer" dirt, even when layered with rock, to asphalt or concrete. According to Chuck, getting my knees straight will make all surfaces friendly to me. I so look forward to that time.

I also look forward to trying a few more challenging trails but I will stick with the shorter ones for now. And by "challenging" I mean trails that some others run on. I don't have anything to prove, except to myself.

Lichen-encrusted rocks testify to the clean air.

Challenges and Comparisons

Recovery has not been a smooth path. When I ask others who have been through knee surgery what it's been like, many of them say the same thing - lots of ups and downs. Some say it was smooth sailing all the way but I suspect they are lying. Maybe not, but either way it's just different for each of us.

Sleep is still a matter of many interruptions. Fewer of those interruptions are from restless leg syndrome, I am happy to report. The amount of sleep I am getting has increased dramatically, even on days when I wake often. Last night's report:

Sleep log for night of March 9-10, 2012

You can see it was a busy night. I was up a lot. Yet the in-betweens were meaningful. I did get sleep and perhaps enough of it. I have not taken any ropinarole since some time in January and my need for it has decreased significantly. I expect to refill my prescription soon (I have been out of it, which is why I stopped taking it) and then will use it judiciously and hoard it. 

I am hiking frequently now. Easy hikes, not much climbing. I still don't have a hiking stick, so some hikes are out of the question no matter what. Usually the lengths are from one to two miles, maybe a little longer. After I did a 2.2-mile hike, my physical therapist said that he was surprised I did well for that long on bent legs. My bent knees put a lot of stress on my legs and that tires them. Yesterday's hike, which was otherwise beautiful, was maybe a mile and a half and I felt tired and aching the entire time. I just couldn't wait to be done with it. Fortunately, this has not been my most common experience with hiking lately. 

I don't usually wake with strong pain in my knee and leg. When my leg is bothering me it is closer to restless leg than outright pain. I consider this an improvement. 

I asked a fellow bent-knee patient, who has finally got his legs straight, when they actually got there and how. He said they went straight on the table about a month ago, suddenly. Out of the blue, when Chuck pushed on them, the backs of his legs touched the table.  I want this for myself. It is taking much longer for me, though. But they are getting "softer" and Chuck can put considerably more pressure on them now.  I am closing in on one year since my first operation. What an eye-opener.

Ups and Downs

Sleep continues to elude me in one way or another:

Last night I felt so sleepy, for no reason I can figure, given I had slept well the night before. So I went to bed early and I stayed in bed beyond the time listed here, still feeling a need for rest.

I woke again and again, as you can see. Some of the time it was my left leg feeling uncomfortable. I have had fewer and lighter episodes of restless leg syndrome lately, but had a bit of it with my left leg. When I get uncomfortable now I simply sit up on the side of the bed. Usually this helps. As I sat there last night I looked at my right leg and realized that it was not bothering me at all. Just the left.  In addition to the left leg issue my mind was whirling. Thoughts turning into dreams, dreams going beyond sleep time. Parts of the television program Being Human intersected with thoughts about what I should be doing and am not. It is often hard to turn off my mind.

Since my last post I have taken two more little hikes. The second was into the Irish Hills at the end of Madonna Road in San Luis Obispo. I was almost stopped at the beginning: the start is fairly steep and the soil is clayey and therefore slippery. I was afraid of falling. But I grabbed some shrubs on the side of the path for a bit for more stability and made it up that part. From there on there were no too-slippery parts. I went only twenty minutes in, to the second bridge, and then turned around.

Somewhere in the middle of the hike in Irish Hills

Yesterday, my third little hike, was the world's shortest hike: Terrace Hill here in SLO. From the sidewalk on a street not far from where I live the trail climbs rather steeply up to a terraced top, from which one can see all of San Luis Obispo, 360 degrees. The short steep climb did get my heart rate up if briefly.

My near-constant companion is the fitbit. This little guy tells me that I climbed 19 floors during the Irish Hills hike and 11 for Terrace Hill. According to the fitbit website, each floor is equal to about ten feet in elevation gain, so I climbed 190 feet on the Irish Hills trail and 110 on Terrace Hill.  Having this gadget on me really does motivate me to take more steps or climb more stairs or hills. I come back to my base (my iMac) to sync up and eagerly look at what I've done.

There is a clear difference in surfaces for me. I was in Palm Springs from the 19th to the the 24th and walked on the sidewalks every day. And every day I felt enough hip pain to make the walk uncomfortable. When I hiked, however, the hip pain disappeared almost immediately. Clearly hiking is a better activity for me right now, given that without the pain I can walk more consistently, more correctly. It continues to be difficult to walk without a limp much of the time (I am not using my cane these days, yet at times perhaps I should be).

In sum: I am having fewer and shorter incidences of both RLS and intense leg pain. My hip continues to bother me but not all the time. I am walking more and starting to hike. My legs are still not straight (sigh).

I did it!

Today another milestone. I did my first hike since the first knee surgery last April. In fact, it was probably well before April when I last hiked. I was hurting so much that hikes were far from appealing at the time I first went under the knife.

I chose the Elfin Forest in Los Osos for my first foray. The walk is almost entirely boardwalk, with many benches, and is only 4/5 mile long. It is not flat but the ascent is not steep, as it is very near the bay. Next to it, in fact. The picture above shows how it got its name. It really looks magical inside the tree cover. A separate little boardwalk enters the forest in specific locations so we can look but not touch. You could walk the whole way on the boardwalk and not know the wonders inside. But there is much to enjoy outside of the forest itself, in the views of Morro Rock and several of the "Seven Sisters" - ancient volcanos that line up, marching from Morro Bay to San Luis Obispo and actually into a part of San Luis Obispo.

But I digress. I went without a cane. I remember the last time I visited this little walk. It was well before my knee surgery. I grabbed at almost every chance to sit on one of the benches, to relieve the pain. This time I did not sit down once. I did not feel I had to. I did feel a bit of a strain toward the end but it seemed mostly because my body is not used to walking any more, not because of pain. My left knee did get a bit sensitive but it recovered all right. For a bit I thought I might need to ice my knees when I got home but I was fine by then, and am still fine now.

I could feel the pressure I was putting on my knees. It was a bit uncomfortable but not painful. I feel like I pushed them as far as they want to go right now, but I could go a bit farther next time out. I did not experience any hip pain.

This post does not reflect well how great I felt when I finished. Just yesterday I was making my way around Costco and finding it quite uncomfortable, both inside and out. I did not see how I could do a hike comfortably. Now I know that I can, and it's exhilarating.

Time Flies

Time doesn't really fly for me. Not at night, anyway.

I recently purchased a fitbit. A fitbit is a movement monitor, intended to track steps especially, but movement in general. It is small and wireless and uploads information automatically when it is near my computer. One of the special things it does is monitor sleep! Last night I set it to start monitoring and the above chart shows what it learned. Notice that I was in bed over ten hours and slept over seven. This was a good night, too. Over time I will have other examples, especially of the restless, impossible nights. Note, though, that on a good night I was awakened 47 times.

Sleep, then, is something I still have difficulty with. I still have episodes of restless leg syndrome (RLS), which accounts for some of the sleep interruptions, and I still frequently wake with a lot of pain in my knee specifically and sometimes down my leg to my foot. I do think the RLS is decreasing just a bit. I have been off the RLS meds for over a week now and not every night has been horrible. I don't know if I want to stay off those meds yet, however. 

In other news,  I am still spending time at the physical therapist's office. The above is one view of the office. It takes over an hour for me to go through everything, even when I don't have to wait for equipment. Last friday the therapist did some extra pushing on my knee. It's getting there. It's damned slow but I keep plugging.