Has anyone had back surgery out there?

I had a major blowout at L5/S1, in Sept 2003. For me, I lost partial use of my left leg. I was told that I could get back in the water after 3 weeks. No running for maybe 8 weeks (I forget, since I don't run). I asked them if I could do everything in the water and they said "um, sure". I asked if I could do flip turns, to which they asked, "can you swim without flip turns?" My reply, "Not unless you removed my ego while I was in surgery." I had similar weekness as msgrupp when pushing off the walls for a while, but I kept at it. I kept it slow and steady. My surgery was in October and I did starts in a meet in February, including backstroke. By March, I was competing at our Championship meet. Have you spoken to a neuro surgeon about getting back in the water? Preferably a neuro surgeon who has experience with swimming? I have a good friend who swam with me in college who was able to look at my MRI and give me advice. It helped that he knew what it meant to "start swimming again".

I had a major blowout at L5/S1, in Sept 2003. For me, I lost partial use of my left leg. I was told that I could get back in the water after 3 weeks. No running for maybe 8 weeks (I forget, since I don't run). I asked them if I could do everything in the water and they said "um, sure". I asked if I could do flip turns, to which they asked, "can you swim without flip turns?" My reply, "Not unless you removed my ego while I was in surgery." I had similar weekness as msgrupp when pushing off the walls for a while, but I kept at it. I kept it slow and steady. My surgery was in October and I did starts in a meet in February, including backstroke. By March, I was competing at our Championship meet. Have you spoken to a neuro surgeon about getting back in the water? Preferably a neuro surgeon who has experience with swimming? I have a good friend who swam with me in college who was able to look at my MRI and give me advice. It helped that he knew what it meant to "start swimming again".