It's the day before we fly to France. The plan yesterday was to go to my semi-annual Cardiology appointment (a long story involving a virus), then go for one last long ride over lunch before washing and packing my bike clothes. But in the morning I felt a pain in my bladder, which only got worse at the visit with Dr. Watson, my cardiologist. Most Dr. Watson appointments generally devolve into discussions about vacations, or pains I'm having anyplace but my heart, like the time I told him I hurt my knee playing soccer and Dr. Watson told me I probably tore my meniscus. I later saw my knee doctor who when I told him what Dr. Watson said, chuckled and said Dr. Watson wasn't an orthopedist. Then he checked me out and told me I probably tore my meniscus. Anyway, this time after discussing my upcoming trip to France, we got to talking about the pain in my bladder which was starting to expand to my back. We agreed I probably had a kidney stone and needed to get it taken care of pronto or I'd miss my flight. Then he and my wife (Kim) resumed talking about vacations until I finally interrupted them and told her I'd really like to go to the ER now. So, he called and talked to the ER doc, then sent me downstairs to ER with instructions to act like I was in a whole lot of pain.

Being a public web site, I will spare everyone the gory details, but the ER doc, a Urologist and a host of wonderful nurses jumped through hoops to be sure I'd make my plane on Friday. As a result, twelve hours later I came home with a stint, some pain meds and instructions to yank on a string on Monday in France which will remove the stint just before we jump on our bikes and ride a thousand miles. What could go wrong. I feel totally fine now, except when I go to the bathroom, which is every hour. Let's hope that changes by the time I take my window seat for a nine hour flight.