Last month when I checked in on my PT progress, I was dealing with a set back, followed by the start of some very early signs of progress. 

One month later, I'm really happy to say, the progress seems to be continuing for the most part. 

Literally turning a corner

At my PT appointment on Tuesday, we did a repeat evaluation of some different exercises that I really struggled with at the start of the summer. I made big improvements in all of them. 

My therapist reminded me that I'd been in therapy working with her since June, and over the course of 14 appointments and many weeks, we have built a lot of stability back into my joints, specifically in my hips. 

Unfortunately for me, my PT starts a new job next week, so Tuesday was my last appointment with her. We'd both been considering whether or not I should "graduate" from PT when she finished since I had made some really good progress.

But last week I had a pretty bad flare up in my hamstring. I can't really pinpoint what triggered it. I largely followed my PT plan and hadn't been pushing it too hard on my running intervals. My PT assured me that sometimes this happens on the long road of recovering from an injury, but it definitely made me not want to graduate just yet.

The main reason being, I didn't want her to close out my case and if things weren't resolving, I'd have to go back to the doctor for another evaluation and then start with a new PT that had no context. 

Instead, our plan is to keep my case active and transfer me to another PT. We're still trying to figure out the exact cadence of appointments going forward. I've been going weekly for a while now, and since I am making progress, I'm hoping we may be able to decrease the frequency.

I got to meet my new PT on Tuesday, and she seems to be really nice, though I will miss working with my current one. After all these months, I feel like we're finally seeing the pay off of all this work, and it's a bit of a bummer we won't be able to finish it out together. 

But in trying to focus on the positives, my hip joints are way more stable and are better able to support me in day-to-day activities. I still have a bit of instability in my right ankle that is likely playing a role in all of this, so we've added in some exercises to specifically target that.

And today for the first time in over a year, I went on an almost pain free run/walk. My running intervals have increased slowly over time and are between 3.5 -4 minutes now, with a two minute walking recovery in between. I didn't feel any real soreness, tightness or pain until the very end of the workout, and it dissipated as soon as I finished. 

I'm holding on to some cautious optimism that maybe I'm finally getting to the end of this very long and drawn out recovery.

Savannah is the perfect size city to explore in a day, and since Ben had never been and I hadn't been in a while, we decided to take a day trip from Charleston. 

We left Charleston in the morning and were in Savannah by 11 a.m.

Our only plans for the day were to walk around enjoying the city and hopeful eat some good food. 

We started our morning walking through Forsyth Park, and obviously stopped for a picture at the fountain. 

Have you even gone to Savannah if you don't take a photo here?

From there we meandered our way in the general direction of the river. 

We stopped to explore some of the squares, and managed to pop into the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist just before Mass was going to start and they were going to kick out all the tourists. 

I'm glad we managed to get in. It was a really beautiful building that I hadn't visited the last time I was there. 

We ducked into an adorable bookstore right off one of the squares, and I spent time strolling through the aisles before I discovered a section of Blind Date with a Book. This is one of my favorite ways to patronize independent book stores, and I settled on this YA romance. It seemed like a good choice around Halloween. 

We strolled down Broughton Street stopping in some of the shops. I snagged some delicious pumpkin spice whipped honey from the Savannah Bee Company. And then we stopped for lunch at Goose Feathers Cafe. If you're looking for a quick and delicious lunch stop in Savannah, I definitely recommend Goose Feathers. We heard a tour guide say they have a great brunch too, but can't vouch for that ourselves. 

The rest of the day was lots more walking. We walked along the river, we explored the city market. 

And then in the afternoon we did two historic house tours. These are really popular things to do in Savannah, and it was the one thing I felt like I missed out on during my last trip. 

The first tour we did was of the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters. This was definitely a highlight of the trip in terms of learning something new about historic Southern cities and slavery. The house has been really well preserved and the audio tour was well done. It was obviously a heavy topic, and I thought this tour handled it well by not glossing over the ugly parts of Savannah's history, like our second house tour did. This tour was a little pricey in comparison to some of the others, but I'd say it was well worth it. Definitely one of the best parts of our trip. 

Our second historic home tour was the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace. She was the founder of the Girl Scouts and at one point when her original home was going to be sold off, the Girl Scouts purchased it and restored it. This tour was also interesting if for nothing else than every room was packed with Juliette's artwork -- paintings, sculptures, blacksmithing. I had no idea she had dabbled in so many different art forms. I was a little disappointed that this tour didn't really include much of a mention or acknowledgement that slaves likely worked in the house. If someone on the tour hadn't asked where the service entrance was in one of the rooms, I don't think it would have been mentioned at all. Seemed like a missed opportunity for important education on this tour. 

After walking all over the city, we'd worked up quite an appetite. We stopped for an early dinner at Public Kitchen before heading back to Charleston. 

Our day in Savannah was definitely my favorite day of the whole Charleston trip. Savannah is just such a beautiful city and so lovely to spend a day walking around.  

I just got back from a two week work/vacation trip to Charleston. Ben was wrapping up some work training that he was down there for, and it seemed like a good excuse for a change of scenery. 

I drove down the day after Hurricane Ian hit South Carolina, but other than driving through some of the remaining bands of rain in Virginia (which was not fun), by the time I got to Charleston, you hardly would have known a hurricane had just passed through. 

We spent the first weekend settling in, eating some delicious fried chicken and BBQ, and I slept a lot. I did not realize how much the 8-hour solo drive would wipe me out, but I was dragging by Saturday evening and even Sunday I was still struggling. 

Despite the fact that I was on the struggle bus on Sunday, we spent the day over on Sullivan's Island. We explored Fort Moultrie, which guarded Charleston Harbor. 

It was definitely still flooded from the storm. 

We also walked down to the beach, though it was overcast and pretty cool, so we didn't hang out for long.

During the first week, I did a mix of working and taking vacation time.

Our AirBnb was a great set up for working. During the week I bounced between the living room and the beautiful screened in porch. I wish I had taken a picture of the porch. It was just such a nice change of scenery during my workdays. 

On Thursday, I had booked a kayaking/fossil hunting trip. This was the coolest way to spend a day in Charleston. The group met up and kayaked for about 25 minutes to an island in one of the rivers. Then we worked with our guide who was an expert in finding and identifying 30 million year old fossils. 

He helped me find my first ever shark's tooth, and then helped others in the group find and identify all sorts of fossils. I'd never been on a trip like this and it was so cool to find all these old fossils that were still in pretty good condition because they had been preserved in the limestone. If you're in Charleston and looking for something kind of unique to do, I highly recommend this! 

I spent Friday afternoon soaking up a perfect 80 degree day at Isle of Palm.

In the evening we met up with a friend from PA at Edmond's Oast Brewery. Multiple people had recommended the brewery to us, including a coworker whose daughter works there, and it was just really nice to catch up.

We did a really fun day trip to Savannah my second Saturday in town. It actually was my favorite part of the whole trip, and I'll dedicate a separate post to that. 

My in-laws were supposed to get into town Sunday morning and we were going to to do lots of the traditional Charleston things -- walk around the battery, visit Rainbow Row, go see the Pineapple fountain. 

But they ended up with the travel day from hell and instead of landing in Charleston at 9 a.m., they got there at 7 p.m.

Ben and I walked around, hit some of the touristy spots and stumbled upon some sort of festival on King Street where the road was closed to traffic so pedestrians could stroll and check out all the vendors set up. 

The Halloween decorations were on point.

Monday was our day of museums. We visited the Old Slave Mart Museum downtown, and then went over to Mt. Pleasant to Patriots Point. 

The highlight was obviously the photo-op with the Top Gun fighter jets. 

And we of course did a ghost tour. Ghost tours are one of my favorite, kind of silly things to do when visiting cities. You always get to hear a couple of cool stories and some of the local folklore.

Our trip ended with Ben's graduation on Thursday, and then the long drive back home on Friday. 

It was a fun two weeks full of good food.

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