Burst

The past few months, I had been having trouble with my back again.  Nothing overwhelming, but enough so that I got it checked out.  After some examinations and an MRI, turns out the disc had burst again.  Well not technically I suppose - discs are made of fibrous casings containing a more fluid filling.  The fibrous case is similar to hair, in that it there is no blood flow to it and it cannot heal.  So when I got my back fixed the first time, the surgeon just trimmed away the part of the filling that had pushed out of the casing.  But the hole remained, and it looks like more filling has burst forth.

In anticipation of surgery, I decided to get my car serviced, since I didn't want anything to happen while my Mom was here in town driving me to and from the hospital.  It was time for some fluids and filters.  The day before I went to Jiffy Lube, I happened to get a low coolant warning.  What good luck - I was headed in anyway.  As I pulled up to the garage, though, I noticed more smoke than I'd like to see coming out of my hood.  Turns out I had burst the upper coolant hose from the radiator.  Luckily, the service station next door was able to fix up my car in fairly short order.

Now, I'm fit to burst.  My do-over surgery was scheduled for tomorrow.  The doctor's office just called, and informed me that due to an emergency, my surgeon is unavailable until Monday.  I will probably be "first on the list" for surgery then.  Great news, now that my mom has paid to fly down here, I've arranged my work schedule to accommodate the next two days off, and I have arranged everything to take care of this Thursday.  So now I get to take more time off next week to get the new surgery date, and need to find someone new to take me to and from the airport since Mom will have flown home by then.  Just a string of bad luck lately.

On the other hand, Matt has some great ideas for a possible home-built CVT road bike for me.  That's worth getting excited about.