4 Months Out: Life is good again!

This might be the final post in the blog, but I hope to remember to come back to it in a year and see where I am at that point.

Life continues to improve! I have reached every one of the goals I set before my surgery so far, and the only one that looks even moderately difficult at this point is running the 5K race in July.

I can run now, however, and I have recently been able to run a full mile without stopping! Finally making it a mile was HUGE for me, because when I first started running again I could barely make it even 1/10 of a mile. I was VERY, VERY out of shape after 4 months off. I have done the full mile 11 times as of today, and I am hopeful that I will be at 1.5 miles by June 1 and be able to run the 5K in July.

I was able to SKI 6 weeks out from my surgery and ski WELL! I skied blacks, I skied bumps--everything I used to do. This made me VERY happy, of course. The one thing that I could not do was snowboard, because I did not have the strength back in my left calf muscle to do it. I still could not do that, based on how I feel right now. I am hoping that by next winter I will be able to.

I don't have to take any regular meds anymore, even Advil. If I have any pain in the morning I will sometimes take an Aleve, but that's it. There really is almost no pain in my back at this point. It is mostly an issue of trying to work my leg muscles back into shape and trying to make those nerves regenerate themselves and WORK!

I guess if I had to give it a percentage I would say I am at about 50% right now, but I was in pretty darn good shape when this started. I think most people would be happy to be where I am right now, and I plan to get MUCH better still!

If you have a spinal tumor and are reading this you need to know that life is GREAT for me only 4 months out of surgery. I play soccer with my kids, I play basketball with them, I coach several soccer teams, I run, I ski, I bike--I can do almost everything I could before, albeit a little more slowly and less athletically.

The spinal tumor diagnosis is NOT the end of the world. Don't believe all the bad news you read online. Your life can and probably will be excellent again. Do not lose hope! Feel free to contact me if you are going through this yourself:

clark.pollitt@kcd.org