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It is now mid July, probably two months after I wrote my last entry. During this time I have had surgery to remove an ovarian cyst, so I have been largely out of cirulation and not riding. I have also had builders in my house, but thankfully, a friend who was away loaned me her house for the first two weeks post-op, and that was a real help. Various people have helped to look after me, and have been wonderful, but the combined scenario has been a big deal. Thank God, I appear to have come out of it remarkably well.
There were some interesting learnings that came out of my recovery. I had very little pain, except for a 'pull' from the left hand end of the incision down to the corner of my pubic bone. This hurt like hell just in one stage of rolling over my foot, and it made me very lame. (I have no idea if it involved damage to nerves, to a muscle, or what; but it was definately secondary to the main focus of the surgery.) It really became quite worrying, and I feared that I might have a longer term injury that might affect my riding. It took me ages to realise that each time I opened the door of my bedroom, which was rather stiff, I stood with my left foot forward, and pulled the door towards me with my left hand. This was my instinctive way to do it; but it was contributing to the injury, and upping my pain levels, so that walking remained painful for some time afterwards. I had to really reorganise myself to open the door with my right hand whilst standing with my right foot foward. It made a significant difference to the pain I experienced.
It took me about another week to realise that another contribuary factor was that I always take my first step with my left leg. By the laws of Physics, it takes much more force to start a body moving than it does to keep it moving once it has started. If I started walking with my right leg, it made a big difference, and I think that this was when the pain really started to diminish. The improvement, when it finally happened, was rapid, and I now walk, ride (with caution), cough, sneeze, shovel shit, and am nearly normal!
It was particularly interesting to me that it took me so long to 'get it'. Given that I teach co-ordination, and help people to discover their asymmetries, you might have thought that I would be quicker off the mark! I can only claim stupidity, and suspect that someone without this training would not have had a hope of figuring it out. It makes me wondour how much our dominant leg, which we use to take the fist step, sets up our pelvic asymmetry. For riders, I think it is as, or more, significant than the dominant hand. The good news is that you only have to engage brain to start walking with the other leg (but remembering to do this is not so easy as it sounds!). However, it is much less cumbersome than trying, say, to muck out with the other hand/arm, and following this experience, I think it can have a significant effect.