I stayed another day and night in Rutland but my knee continued to hurt. When it first started hurting it was just when walking downhill, but now it hurts walking even on flat ground or uphill. It’s impossible me to walk at a normal pace or without limping and without pain. I don’t know what’s wrong but I’m hoping it improves with some time off from hiking. In order to avoid paying $20 a night to stay at the hostel, I had my brother come pick me up and bring me two hours north to stay with him in Burlington. I’m so grateful he doesn’t mind me staying with him and even drove to come get me. It would be a very different (and worse) situation if I had to stay in Rutland. I’d maybe be a cult member by now.
It’s Tuesday now and I haven’t hiked since last Thursday. My knee hasn’t improved and still hurts with every step. I don’t know what it could be since I’ve never had knee problems and didn’t fall or do anything to injure it. I started taking the antibiotics for Lyme disease just in case and am hoping that is the issue and my knee improves. If not, I probably will go to the hospital here or may have to go back to MA to the doctor where my insurance will cover it.
I’m doing the best I can to stay optimistic. The AT has definitely already changed me as I’m way more patient about my knee than I would have been previously. That’s not to say I’m happy about all this though. It’s really tough to not know what’s wrong and when, or even if, I’ll get better. It’s been such beautiful weather and it pains me to take days off when I could be hiking. I don’t have a time crunch but its tough not to feel pressure to get hiking as each day spent in Burlington not hiking will be a day spent hiking in the cold weather come November. It’s also tough because I’ve been looking forward to hiking the AT for so long. Hiking and overcoming the many challenges of the trail has been my focus for so long, but now I face an unforeseen challenge that I can’t just will myself to push through. I can’t control the situation so I’m doing my best to just rest my knee and enjoy the beautiful city of Burlington and time with my brother. Hopefully this will end up being just another bump in the road ill later look back on and be proud of getting through. So for now, I’m on an indefinite break but will hopefully get back to hiking as soon as possible.