Dazed & Confused

I thought my body was handling the Vicodyn o.k. but once the feeling came back to my foot and I could feel the pain and thus increased the dosage (per the doctor/nurse) my body finally rebelled. Tuesday afternoon & evening were a bit rough, the drugs weren’t working all that well as far as numbing the pain though they did a great job of knocking me out. I woke up at 4 am Weds. in pain and got up to get more drugs and nearly toppled over. Severe dizziness, nausea, all the things I usually get on these types of drugs and there was no way my body was going to take any more so I gave up and moved onto Ibuprofin. I woke up a few hours later with the fog clearing, less pain in my foot and my stomach finally more or less settled. I decided that the pain was at a low enough level that I’d rather deal with it than go back into that terrible Vicodyn haze. Today is even better, hardly any pain to speak of though I’m still a bit dizzy and keep falling asleep without warning so there must be some remnants of something but it feels like the fog has finally lifted and I may be able to read later today and perhaps make it through an entire DVD.

Things not to do while on Vicodyn:

1. Handle hot liquids, or any liquids for that matter
2. Change your blog’s colors/fonts/settings
3. Read anything but especially dog training articles.
4. Watch agility competitions on t.v. (It took me a while to realize that I was suffering from double vision and that there really only was one dog on the screen at a time and that the whole DVD of the World Champs. wasn’t some Dartfish comparison).
5. Attempt to train the dogs. Anything.
6. Try to carry on a coherent conversation with innocent bystanders. The Fed Ex lady was smart and took off before I could get to the door. The poor dog walker was not so lucky.
7. Watch home improvement shows. I was better about it this time around but last time I was convinced I could make a cool looking coffee table out of copper plumbing if only Jonny would let me have a blowtorch. Needless to say he knew way better than that but there was much arguing and rolling of eyes before I finally gave up on the idea and it was only because I lost interest once I started feeling better.
8. Try to remember when you took your last Vicodyn.
9. Play around with your camera, esp. the delete button
10. Watch the ‘Dog Whisperer’, esp. if you are like me and rant at the t.v. at the mere sight of him on a good day.

Now comes the hard part, keeping me quiet now that I’m feeling better. Triathletes don’t take to crate rest any better than border collies. I go to the doctor a week from today to have the bandages and stitches removed. I can’t get my foot wet until then so no swimming. I have my first P.T. appointment a week from Monday and I’ll probably go to the pool the day after that. The doctor sez the more I swim, the less P.T. I’ll need so I’m going to try to go nearly every day. I’m thinking of aiming for the Horsetooth Open Water Swim race held in August up in Fort Collins, about an hour from here. There are many distances to choose from unless you want to swim in a wetsuit in which case your only choice is 2.4 miles. This seems a good distance to shoot for and there’s no way I’m swimming in Horsetooth Reservoir without a wetsuit. I’m not into hypothermia. I’ve always wanted to try this race but a race with only swimming sounds so boring and there are always so many things to choose from at that time of year. But this year there will be no biking or running races for me so this is about all I can hope to do. I’m also curious to see just how good I can get at swimming if I swim nearly every day. Plus it will be a while before I can hope to keep up at masters since I can’t push off the wall with my foot so having a race to aim for will help motivate me to go to the pool on my own. I hate swimming by myself and it’s so easy to decide not to go. Pre-surgery I was swimming around 1:50-1:53 min. per 100 yards which is pretty slow even for me. For tri’s I usually swim around 2:00-2:07 because I’m saving myself for the rest of the race and because it’s harder to negotiate a straight line in open water than in a pool. A reasonable goal to shoot for would be 1:40’s but my double secret goal is to finish under an hour which would mean 1:25’s. This is pretty unrealistic but would be cool if I could do it. Oh yeah, one more thing to add to the ‘do not do on Vicodyn’ list-pick races and set goals.