Our Gruesome DetailsYup. It's that time. Time to come clean and share with you all the gruesome details about our injuries and surgeries! Well - maybe just the highlights. OK? Ladies First! Yoko had a serious skiing incident a few years ago that caused major damage to the MCL/ACL ligaments in her knee. This was a few years back when you still got put into a hard, heavy fiberglass cast for 3 months. Basically your leg atrophies when you cannot use the muscles, cannot exercise them at all properly. Many long months on crutches followed and was not fun! Her rehab took almost one full year of hard work to rebuild strength and flexibility in her leg. Her physio was long, painful and very slow but she did it. She had a real turning point near the end of her recovery when a personal friend and licensed massage therapist gave her a treatment that was screamingly painful but got her 'over the hump'. Yoko has always been a dedicated walker, passionate hiker and outdoors person. There was just no way under the sun that she was NOT going to walk and hike again. Oh yeah. Did we mention that she had to go on a one year backpacking tour of Southern Asia 6 months after her injury? No way was she going to miss that! Even if it did slow her recovery a bit. More recently she broke her wrist on a hike up to a glacier and worked her way through that too. Again, slow and painful but a good recovery. Yoko also deals with some arthritis and as with all major injuries has some residual effects that she continually deals with. Walking is most enjoyable and one of the ways to put all that aside and lead an enjoyable life. Geoff's Pains In Geoff's case he slipped a disc in his back years ago that will never be 'like new'. If he does not control his weight, the back starts to act up. Back pain for those that know, is a very challenging pain that can be hard to cope with. As odd as it seems though walking can and does help him with it. Another big trauma moment was when Geoff was coming down from a summit hike in the Rockies, slipped on a wet snowbank and ended up with a 90% tear of the quad tendon in his leg. This was his first major surgery and a real eye opener. Being told by the doctor in your late fifties that you cannot drive a vehicle for at least 3 months when your profession requires you to drive almost daily to keep your practice going is...a shock! Add to that the fact that Geoff is also an avid walker and cyclist who loves the outdoors, this is a double whammy for sure. Several months of walking on crutches followed (including 6 block walks on crutches to the physio three times a week in the downtown core of a major city). Intense exercise and many visits to the swimming pool for water walking exercises followed. More 'fun' came after he started to walk again. His walking gait was not normal and caused some achilles problems in the opposite leg. This one took a long time to work through and required the use of a foot splint at night. Geoff's pains will always be in the background and really only 'talk' if he stops walking. Great motivation to keep going! As you can see we know a little about pain and working through stuff. We can understand your pain! It all feels much better when we walk! In fact we truly value every moment we're able to be outdoors and able to walk! We hope you do too!
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