Day 67: Crater Lake to Klamath Falls, OR

Date: 6/27/2015
Time: 11pm
Weather: Chilly, Sunny
Location: The Ledge Climbing gym

7 days left. Everyone has been getting pretty emotional at this point. Just cause we're a family and we don't want to be parted.

Today's the first day of my recovery ride. I didn't want to push myself too hard. If the accident happened a month ago, I'd have sagged for two weeks for my knee to heal completely. But now, we have only a week left, it's a race with time. I'm learning not to fear. The mile-17-phobia will always be there in my mind to haunt me. But I know I need to get rid of it, the sooner the better.

I didn't do the downhill this morning. I sagged for the first 24 miles just cause I'm not mentally prepared yet. I hopped on my bike at the rest stop and did 30 miles today. What's better than being able to bike again? We got a portrait 2 miles out of the rest stop!

This guy was driving a car and started talking to Khrystyna. He said he want to do a portrait with us. He sounded like he really wanted us to document his story. He saw us on the newspaper yesterday and waited for us on Hwy 97 but he didn't get to meet us. Just when he thought he had missed us, he met us right at the junction to his house. He got pretty emotional the entire interview. So he felt a back pain  one day and had it checked out. The doctor ran through a MRI scan but never discussed the result with him. He went to a second doctor later, and the doctor did MRI too but still didn't discuss the MRI result with him. He felt weird and took the initiative to read through the reports himself. Then he felt something was wrong with the report, so he went on to a third doctor further away from where he lives in Oregon and the doctor immediately referred him to a urologist. The urologist was super professional-this guy was immediately diagnosed with stage 2 kidney cancer, and had his kidney removed in less than 2 weeks. His message to the public is to do your own things (read the reports) and never rely fully on the professionals. If only he was late for 3 months, he said he wouldn't be here anymore. Well, this is a pretty unique story I've heard/read. I might have messed up some parts of the story so look it up in www.portraitsproject.org sometime later.

Then we continued biking. We passed the Klamath Lake which is super huge and pretty. I wished I've gotten photos of it but I just wanted to stay focused on road. The entire way was pretty flat so it wasn't of much problem for me. The only thing that scared me was the heavy traffic with RVs and trucks on Hwy 97. Thanks to Khrystyna, Lizzie, and Emmy for keeping me safe and staying patient with me today.

I was surprised and excited to find out about our stayover today. We are staying in the Ledge Climbing gym for the very first time. I thought we are gonna stay at a church today. As soon as we arrived, the host was barbecuing some burgers for us , ordered pizza, and got us beers too. The shower here is good too! Guess what?! I showered today and my wound didn't hurt as much as I thought it would be! It had healed so much!

We went to Walmart after, and stopped by the Human Bean for frozen hot chocolate on our way back. It was delicious! The host provided us with dinner too-it was pasta, salad, and garlic bread. Too bad I couldn't eat that much anymore nowadays, cause I can't bite with my front teeth and my mouth is still hurting from the fall.

A massues came by and helped us with massaging. It felt sooooooooo good! I had her massage on my bad knee and she said I might need to get it checked out cause it's still pretty swollen. The bruises are everywhere on my knee. Well like Khrystyna said, "You looked like you had two knees when you fell." Hopefully the swell will go away soon PLEASEEEEE.

Conclusion: I've gotten so much better in terms of healing. Aquaphor is not just useful for saddle sores, but also super helpful for open wound and scabs. For bike stuffs, I've learned to tighten and loosen break pads yay! Zack taught me about this few days back but I just learned more fron Ben today! And I really love Crater Lake!