Hello folks!  September is here already!  Unbelievable!  My summer was mixed with some good and bad things out of it.  Let’s start with bad things.  After 2nd surgery, it was most miserable, painful, and terrible recovery for me which lasted through to mid-August.  I was told that it was going to be one hour surgery with one week of recovery, but during the surgery, my surgeon saw how serious damage my meniscus.  It was literally torn in middle….more of it split in half.  The original plan was to trim off the “hanging” meniscus on the edge, but no…..scrape that and decided on sewing two parts of meniscus together as one disc of meniscus.  So, it involved some extensive work on my meniscus, hamstring muscles and MCL.  My surgeon didn’t get to see me after the surgery (I think he was in back-to-back surgery), so I had no idea of changes in surgery until I saw him a month later.

When I woke up from surgery, I felt ok, but oddly….I went home as expected.  I was to use crutch for one week, but only used it for two days.  However, I was not feeling ok….more of out of place and not being myself.  I just tried to deal with pain and it continued beyond a week of “expected recovery period” in my head.  I said to myself, “Ok….just give it some more time, maybe few more days or so.”  Nope, it continued throughout the entire summer with me “holding in” my pains to myself and dealing with my travel, work, and life as best as I can.  Some people did noticed how miserable I was in.  I had wonderful assistance during conferences that I attended over this summer to help me to get around the places via golf cart or whatsoever.  They have my gratitude.

When I got to see my surgeon a month after my surgery, I asked him about what was wrong with my recovery period.  He then told me about changes made to surgery plans upon observing and witnessing the “true” damages in my knee area.  Ah ha……He said to attend physical therapy for a month and give myself some weeks to feel ok again.  I decided to spread out my physical therapy sessions over the summer between conferences I was attending, so I can focus on what I needed to work on myself and get on with my life as best as I can.  It wasn’t easy thing to do, but I did it.

I just saw my surgeon a few days ago for follow-up appointment and told him that I finally felt much better in mid-August and was able to re-gain my range of motion in my knee area.  I noticed that I haven’t experienced subluxation (knee pop out/in) since 2nd surgery, so I felt that the 2nd surgery may be successful by remedying my issues.  I still have some numbness on my knee, but in one year from 2nd surgery, hopefully, I will get some or all of these “feelings” back on my knee area.  If not, that’s ok.  I am still working on reducing pains in my knee from squatting and getting up from the floor unassisted.

By end of this month, I will be done with my physical therapy sessions and resume “no limitation” activities.  I am going to take one thing slow and one day at a time….taking up hiking, running, biking, kayaking, and etc. again.  I miss them so much!  Hopefully, I am able to ski/snowboard/snowshoe by this Winter!  🙂  Thank you, my dear family, friends, and supporters, for all of your words of encouragement, prayers, and etc throughout my journey with repairing my knee and getting back on my “feet” once again.  If my knee feels good and allow me to resume long distance hiking expedition again, I will be absolutely exhilarated!  Appalachian Trail (AT) caused me to fall in love with long distance hiking and miss them so badly when I do not get to do them.  🙂

Anyhow, I am going to begin my new journey – organize and begin my journey of sharing story of AT journey with Deafblind and SSP hikers.  I am going to start thinking about where do I start with and surely will let y’all know what my next plans are!  So exciting!  Enjoy the changing season – from summer to autumn…..