Ice Ice Baby

I have fallen in love with ice!

Not to be confused with the evil stuff that don's the pavements in winter trying to undermine anyone with mobility issues, but the fabulous cubes of ice that can ease weary muscles much better than soaking in a hot tub for 3hrs. I am addicted! Walk, ice, walk, ice, eat dinner, ice, massage, bed. Magic!! :o)

I could sit with hot water bottles and heated blankets for hours and not get the relief an ice pack can bring within 15-20 minutes. I suppose in the middle of winter, when you're in pain, ice is the last thing you want to feel as its so damn cold outside anyway. Plus, I don't have a freezer in my apartment (yes, it's amazing how you don't actually miss it that much!). So I better take full advantage of my parents freezer before heading home in two weeks. Mind you, I do have access to ice at work (hee hee), but maybe by then I won't need it.

I'm also loving the self-massage! That could sound a little dodgy! I attended a head-neck massage tutorial as part of healthy week at my work last year and the tutor taught us massage techniques to do on ourselves (so we understood how it felt like on ourselves before subjecting some poor sod to our amateur ways!!). Those techniques have proved invaluable for my aching muscles after a long walk. It's also worked very well for helping me sleep. For the last week, I was waking up every time I turned on my side or back onto my back as the muscles would cramp momentarily. So I was waking up about 5-6 times a night from midnight. But I started to ice and massage my right leg for about half an hour prior to bed the last few nights and I'm sleeping straight for about 7 hrs before the aches creep back in - which is better quality sleep! Much better.

As I'm walking more and more now, about 1.5-2 miles every day or so, the ice and massage has really helped with any muscle stiffness. I've dropped down to one elbow crutch now and the leg is having to work harder during this transition. My wrist aches like mad. I find that I'm leaning a lot to one side when walking so I still really have to concentrate on walking straight, good posture. I can't wait to start doing pilates again as that will help strengthen my core and reduce the crazy body alignment I currently have! I shouldn't be too hard on myself though, it's only been two weeks since the surgery. Geez, it feels like forever ago though!