At some point I’m going have to give riding up, but I intend to fight for it for as long as I can. It’s surprises me that riding the trials bike actually makes my back feel better. Where the race bike makes me feel like I’ve been beaten on with a bat for hours. The dirt bikes, are terrain dependant. If I do a lot of sitting my back isn’t happy, but standing it does okay. Of course, it also comes down to how many falls or what part of my body hits the ground.
I’m now having to do more PT for my back, since there really wasn’t any after care post-surgery that I had in Sept 2020. I’ve also had to have injections into my SI joints this past month. PT works, but if you are in too much pain you can’t make as much progress. The injections have helped me make progress with getting fitter and improving the condition that is giving me trouble.
In Aug 2020 I woke up with a horrific pain going down my left leg, it got worse throughout the day. Finally got in to see my doc, on Monday afternoon. No, I already knew it was nerve pain, been there before, so I knew going to the ER wasn’t going to do much for me. I needed the referral for a neurosurgeon and an MRI. I had a ruptured disc between C6 and C7 in 2014, spent hours in the ER, a week in the hospital while they tried to get the pain level down enough that I could lay flat for the MRI. At that time, I was told I was going to have a lot more issues like that as I got older. Thanks to riding horses for 35 years.
My doc got me an emergency MRI, and into the surgeon the next day. It is worth it to have a good relationship with your primary care doctor. I didn’t have control of my left foot and I couldn’t feel it. What really was freaking me out about it was the I was schedule for a total knee replacement in Oct on my right knee. I really needed control of my left foot if they were going to do the replacement. He had me do 2 weeks of PT, then scheduled me for surgery. The relief from the pain was immediate. It still took a couple of weeks for me to get almost all the control of my foot back. It is still not a100% back, but it is so much better that you have to know what to look for to be able to tell.
During whole time I was still riding dirt, but I had to stop with the street riding, the bike was just too heavy for me to balance it between the bad knee and no feeling/control of the left foot. Shifting was the hardest part, I had to move my whole leg, even then I wasn’t sure if I had gotten the correct gear. Just to prove how motivated I am to keep riding, I even did my first trials event the day before the back surgery. I was back on the dirt bike two week later; I even took that one out the day before the knee replacement. I had the knee replaced 30 days after the back surgery. At this point, one year + later, I think it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll ever get the rest of the feeling back in my foot, but I can live with limited feeling in my big toe.
I did my second trials event 6 months after the knee replacement. I think that helped with my rehab. I know riding is total body work out. You’ve got to have a strong core to do much riding. It’s great aerobic exercise, if you doubt that, I’ll show you my heart rate monitor from when I’m riding single track verses what it looks like when I’m on the elliptical machine. Being able to ride is my motivation for exercising, I work out so that I can ride more.
Needless, to say this pandemic had been hard on me, but I’m happy that I’ve found a great PT to help me get stronger so I can keep riding. Also that my PC doctor understands how much riding helps me stay active and fit.