From Where I Left Off….To a SOBO CDT Hike

Peeps – hello again! When last I wrote last November  I had finished the Arizona Trail and my knee prognosis seemed grim.  I worried that future long hikes were out of my reach.  Two weeks after returning home I waited in anticipation for the doc to give me the awful news……which it was….kind of…but kind of not.  In my younger years I could not fathom that one day a body part might fail me.  Now my knee is a hot mess of degenerative arthritis, torn menisci, a failed ACL repair and a loose body roaming around my knee joint. The only fix for all that is a knee replacement.  No, thank you.  The decision to postpone a knee replacement is an easy one for me.  I do not want to give up the months for a surgery and recovery and physical therapy that it would require – not now at least when I have plans to thru-hike.

And so my orthopedic doc and I developed a  strategy for getting my knee thru-hike ready.  My doc is pumping my knee up with steroids and gel shots and in early June I will undergo a procedure that treats my knees’ peripheral nerves with cold therapy to block pain sensation.  For my part, I have to strengthen my legs through strength training and conditioning.  I’m diligently performing squats and lunges but the small, mean person in me thinks the doc has the easier part of this plan.

All of this is to get me ready to start a SOBO thruhike of the Continental Divide Trail this June!  You heard it here last because it took me a while to get back in blogging mode.  I hope to blog on the CDT as well if I can find a way to enlarge the keyboard keys on my phone so that my giant gorilla fingers can type a legible sentence.  Anyways, more to follow on CDT prep etc.  Happy Hiking.

The bees knees?