"Pain is just weakness leaving the body"

 No, I say male bovine excrement to that! It was the marketing from the US Army, of which I'm not a great fan, but I used the water bottle with that printed line because it was made of number 1 plastic, which I found imparted less plastic taste than the higher numbers, so I preferred before making the even btter switch to stainless steel. No, pain is a useful survival trait that lets a creature know something is wrong. There are rare people with CIP who don't sense pain and need to use extra care when cooking, as they smell meat roasting before they realize they're burning. That's bad for survival.

In my last post, I proclaimed joy at an astounding lack of pain post operation. Narcotics scare the willies out of me, so I was beyond happy to not use any that were prescribed to me, but there was a risk of doing too much because it didn't hurt and having that hamper my recovery. I do feel pain, but I think athletes have a more comfortable relationship accepting it, like my experiencing a colonoscopy unsedated a few years ago and equating it to the discomfort of a cyclocross race, but only three quarters the duration.

Four days post op, I started riding a few miles to speed my transit to the nearest bus stop, and while I did wear the neck brace as extra reinforcement, there was concern from caring friends that it might be too much too soon. Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I had an appointment with the surgeon's PA, who confirmed that riding a bike wasn't a problem, and that it was great I was able so soon. Even more, I was told the neck brace wasn't needed, so more thankfulness, and I can now look behind me for traffic without first pulling over a squaring up to the road.

Bikes are great, and I like riding them, even more so when I know I'm not causing myself problems. Use of my left arm muscles is still reduced, so I'm still riding and making choices with a lot of respect and caution of that, but taking my recovery another step forward, I even tried a run on non-technical, mostly flat trails yesterday. Recovery is two steps forward, one back, and the swing of my arm wasn't in top form for the run, but I quickly figured out I could hold my hands together in front of me and manage an assisted swing of my arms back and forth. Who knows, that motion may even qualify as physical therapy exercise!

When I had immediate positive increase of arm sensation with traction on my neck, the physical therapist asked if I had a device do that at home. No, but I once was a fake engineer doing design work, and I have the neck collar, some cord, and a door to hang it. Works great!