Recovery...

It's been quite a week. I had shoulder surgery on Monday, and then I tried to get started on my "active recovery" on Tuesday.

Shyla and I went out for a morning hike on Tuesday. When I say "hike", most people can insert the word "walk". Where we live, there are no sidewalks or safe places to walk near roads. However, there are many trails, which are literally outside our back door. So, we have short loops that we can hike just by stepping out our door.

I've always been one to push the limits after a surgery. I know that's not necessarily a good thing but I feel almost incapable of sitting around at home all the time during a recovery. My greatest challenge this time has been fatigue. I am bone-tired, capable of a nap almost anytime, which I'm guessing is an after-effect of the anaesthesia. This is the most fatigue I ever remember having after surgery.

Surprisingly, although my shoulder looks horrible with a humongous technicolor bruise, the pain of this surgery pales by comparison to my spine surgeries. It hurts but I can deal with it.

For that reason, I am capable of smiling and laughing as I watch Shyla's joyful play.

 

I love having Shyla to hike with during this recovery - she gets me outside even when I feel like I'd rather stay curled up inside my house. She can be off-leash, which is great, since I am afraid of holding a leash right now. I have the feeling that a hard pull on the leash would be very painful. Unfortunately, R is required to be "on-leash" due to his surgery so I haven't been able to hike with him unless the Runner is present.

This morning, Shyla and I did our longest hike yet, heading out to check a trail camera that I pointed at a mountain lion kill a few weeks ago. Previously, I showed you a photo from this camera, when a group of coyotes was feeding on the elk carcass.

Today, I discovered that the lion came back to the carcass a couple of weeks ago and had his photo taken many times. I still need to go through all the photos but here's one of the big cat with the snow-covered carcass.

Today, there was almost nothing left of the carcass so I brought the camera home, awaiting the next big event in our forest.

Amazingly, this carcass was not terribly far from houses yet I don't think that any residents were aware of it. Mountain lions are masters of moving in the shadows, unnoticed by people. Perhaps only the most secretive mountain lions survived back when they had bounties on their heads, leaving us with a population of mountain lions that is almost invisible to us.

The trip to that trail camera was enough excitement for one day. I am ready for another nap...