Progress Report: Week 22

This weekend marked my five-month surgery anniversary. Wow! I am actually looking forward to July's anniversary date, since it will be six months. I am not sure why. Perhaps because when things were rough, I'd tell myself, "Things will be different in six months. It'll be summer. I'll be back at work. I'll probably have lost 30 lbs. It'll be great!" Well, maybe that's not all 100% true, but things are going pretty good overall. I'm noticing that my toe and side of foot is barely numb most of the time, and I can very briefly go up on my toes on my "bad" side. I don't feel quite as gnarled and tight on my left side. I've had some pain though lately that reminds me that I did have surgery 22 weeks ago. The other morning my back was hurting when I woke up. It was the first time I had realized that while the pain is substantially better than it was -- substantially! -- there still is not a day where I am 100% pain-free. There is barely a day when I don't take Advil. And then add in the pain before and that puts me at about 12 months where I didn't feel some pain every day. But -- and this but is important -- the pain is so much less than it used to be. I'm talking a 1 or 2 here. Sometimes I still have sciatica issues. In the evenings after work and after cooking dinner it can hurt. After I cleaned the bathroom it hurt pretty good. But then I lie down, ice it, and the next morning I am pretty much fine. I think that is progress! So overall I am optimistic that I will eventually be OK.