well i’m currently sipping a Stella Artois (yay, GOOD beer again!) in the Chicago O’Hare airport. i’m 26 hours into my travel and should have been flying out to MPLS in 20 minutes but my flight was cancelled so i’m stuck for another 7 hours… excellent. and do you know how hard it is to get through the airport on crutches? it’s been fine until now because i’ve gotten a wheelchair everywhere, but now they’re dumping me at the gate for 7 hours and i obviously don’t sit still for long. it took a matter of 10 minutes for me to pack everything into the cart and rotate a crutch-step and a push of the cart simultaneously all the way down to the closest bar. 

flash back a few days. thanks to the help of a few great friends- between packing, moving things, helping me buy boxes and luggage and carrying stuff for me over the past week, and every little thing in between. everyone’s been awesome! my former Divemaster trainee and now friend, Martin threw me a heartfelt going away party at Kenny’s Aussie Bar in Karon where he DJ’s in the evenings. i couldn’t have asked for a better send off surrounded by great people. 

i’m feeling pretty optimistic about the surgery now. over the past couple weeks i’ve realized that i’m anxious to get home and get started so i can begin healing. the last month just felt a bit like waiting in limbo. although i couldn’t be having the surgery until now-ish anyways, and i needed that time to pack up my life and say my “sayonara’s”. it’s bittersweet for sure but it’s a new adventure and i’m feeling positive. 

when the wind hit me in Chicago a few hours ago i just thought, “fuck…”. i mean, it’s cold. like REALLY COLD. 2 degrees celcius? are ya kidding? and it’s so… colorless. just white sky, white snow, gray pavement and barren trees. BLAH. i forgot about this. 

and sitting in this bar listening to people talk around me, in English is beyond weird. it’s actually really distracting me and i can’t drown it out, because for the first time in years i can actually understand random conversations. something you take for granted i guess. i forgot how loud Americans are too. hahaha, i guess there will be a few things that’ll hit me being back initially! it feels foreign to me now, it’s uncomfortably loud and efficient and distracting. yup, those are the adjectives i’ll use for now. 

i have a meeting with my surgeon at Tria in Bloomington on the 23rd at 10:45 AM to discuss whether or not i’m strong enough for my surgery now or if i’ll require some physio first. i wouldn’t be surprised if i do require some physio, a month of barely using my knee certainly means i’ve lost muscle mass. ironically my surgeon is Bradley Nelson… i know, you had no idea my father has a hidden talent for the likes of knee surgery, did you? it came as a shock to me as well. nah nah nah i’m just kidding! he does have the same name though as my dad. not too hard to forget and he’s also done my brother’s previous knee surgery so i feel comfortable with him. 

well that’s the update for now folks. this blog is a bit thrown together and not nearly as articulate as i usually try to be but it’s a conglomerate of everything that’s been going on lately. 

i’m officially back STATESIDE. 

xxxx.

L