From bad to good.

So a funny thing happened. A few hours after I posted that I felt great after flying I decided I needed to stretch more...you know, to prevent any injury from that day's flying. Being me, and being stupid, I guess I figured more is better...and after I got up off the floor I was in some sort of bent to the left position, and my back was killing me.

I was in disbelief. Until then it had all been fine.

The next day was no better. Did I do it to myself? Or was it the flying? Oh please, please let me have done this to myself.....

I asked the chiro. "is it possible to over stretch? And hurt yourself?" They didn't seem to think that could be the case. (however...they didn't know me and what I am capable of. Being an idiot and all) That left only one thing. The flying.

As the days passed I got more and more panicked. I mean, when you are staring the real end of your career in the face...well, you don't know what that is like until it happens. It sucks. Talk about feeling trapped.

I started to think of why it happened, if it was in fact the flying. I was in the r22. They are one size fits all. Due to the position of the pedals and the cyclic I have to sit with a slightly bent forward posture. Bent towards my bad side. I don't have this problem in the jet ranger as you are able to adjust the pedals. Then I figured that if I put something behind me that should push me just forward enough to prevent the lean forward.

But still the back hurt. I kept going to the chiro. It was feeling better...but not all better.

Finally yesterday I figured I needed to find out if it was in fact over. So off I went. And they had a big foam piece I could put behind me. And we did an hour of auto's. And they went pretty well. Other than the adjustments required due to my new sitting position. My elbow is much further back in the hover now, new muscles to train. ;)

And once it was over, I was fine. And I drove home. And I was still fine. And now it's the next day, and I feel great. But I have NOT stretched like I did that previous time. I am pretty sure that the pain was caused more by what I did, than the flying. Though I think the flying had left my back tired enough to allow what happened to happen.

So I think I can take a deep breath. Because I've been holding it for over a week. I just could not imagine doing anything other than flying, and the prospect of that was just horrible.

I'm glad I can put it out of my mind now. And work on getting myself to 100%. Not quite there yet, but it's possible. I just have to be more careful and aware of what I am doing at all times. I think I tried not to because that would have been admitting that I might never be the same. Well, I guess I'm going to have to accept that fact. I will never be the same person as before I got hurt. But I can still be a hard working pilot capable of doing most things. Just not the ones that I probably should have known better than to be doing in the first place. Ah hindsight. ;) A horrible result of me trying to be just like the guys. But my body paid the price. I hope I have learned my lesson.