Three months ago, Junior Adventurer #1 had knee surgery to correct a problem in her knee that I gifted to her. She inherited my knees, including their shallow femoral groove and high patella. To give her a lifetime of stability she had a Medial Patellofemoral Ligament Reconstruction procedure. Now she has a tendon taken from the back of her leg used to tether her kneecap in place. Gross, huh?
About a month after surgery she was cleared to walk with a straight-leg brace, but only on flat, stable surfaces. Since we couldn't go to our normal stomping grounds high on Mount Rainier and even our home trail was too rough we took the opportunity to visit the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Although we didn't record any big numbers we did get to see a new place and her new knee was dead tired.
Quick recovery, right? Nope. After that she missed out on little hikes up our home trail, adventures during Winter Break in Arizona, and hikes in Rocky MountainNational Park during the Deuter Ambassador Summit in Colorado. Sucks.
Now, three months after surgery she's finally cleared to hike. Not only cleared to hike, she's been written a prescription to hike. Just like those progressive countries around the world that prescribe time outdoors.
Sure, she has to work back up to the kind of trips she was doing before, but getting back on the trail is a good thing. Nay, a great thing. We made it as far as Turtle Rock on this walk, about a mile out and back. It'll be a twice-a-week thing combined with her regular physical therapy. In a few more weeks she might even lose the brace and then we'll be just like everybody else, but on a quest to go farther and farther every time we go out. (And if she works really hard maybe she'll be in shape to go for another epic the summer of 2019.)
