Here, and not.

I am at the Cascade Classic in Bend, Oregon, attempting to mix it up with the big kids. So far it's going well, though frustrating, since I've wonderful fitness but terrible strategy and have blown it in both stages. The beauty in such stage races is that there remains four opportunities to 'get it right', and just maybe I'll be able to pop a good result against these yahoos.

Yes, bikes are good, though to be honest my mental energy is elsewhere right now. A few days back Lauren came down from McCall (camp Alice Pittenger - Girl Scouts) to have an MRI performed on her back, and to receive steroidal injections into the L4 and L5 surrounding muscle tissue. She's been in pain for quite some time, and the physical therapy she underwent (aimed at rehabilitating a bulging disc) had little effect. So... Monday was the MRI, which actually revealed zero disc bulge, but she went ahead with the injections (epidural style) to reduce inflammation and hopefully alleviate the pinched-nerve sensations for good. OK, good, end of procedure see you in a few months....

Doctor calls her the next evening (Tuesday evening, hours before she planned to return to McCall), to announce that the radiologist spotted a curious discoloration near the lower aorta, apparently down near the upper stomach. The color, the doctor explained, was a loose 'fluid' that, of course, should definitely NOT be there. Shit hits the fan, Lauren's spooked, the doctor calls her in for an emergency CT scan, and meanwhile I'm 335 miles away pedaling my bicycle in a silly race.

CT scan reveals nothing, though the doctor explains that such free-fluid-that-shouldn't-be-there caused such alarm because, typically, it is the byproduct of a growth, cyst, tumor, what have you. Lauren's still freaked. Lauren's doctor stresses that the CT scan revealed no such growth, but returns to the radiologist to further discuss the mystery-fluid in her MRI. So, as of now, they have no freaking idea what caused (is causing?) the fluid, but they are 'reasonably sure' it's not a tumor and Lauren has for the time being been placated and calmed.

I have not. Thank goodness Lauren hardly ever reads this (she abhors email, see Luddite), for I fear that my apprehension would only feed her worries. I know this sounds mushy, but I'd come unraveled if anything happened to her. After living with Jason and watching him go from a healthy gent in his late twenties to a full-blow battler of cancer within a few months... I don't know.

That's it. Reporting on the racing seems shallow at the moment so I'll hold off.