A monkey wrench in the spring plans

To any and all...... and update to M.E. and Nanell,

We're trying to plan a spring get-together, likely in Athens, but open to other ideas. We were thinking May or June. Everyone else check your calendars for May and June and post good and bad times. However, I've encountered a possible snag and won't know for a few weeks for sure.

Add pilonidal cysts to the list of things you don't want to have. Rachel is in the middle of having one treated and it's painful, extremely gross, humiliating and a tad barbaric... No one knows how they form (exactly anyway) and she has absolutely none of the risk factors except she's under 30 (but barely). They don't really have a good way to treat them either!!!! So much for modern medicine.

I'm not explaining what it is here (you can look online for yourself), but it takes about 6 weeks to heal (she's in week 1 and it is healing fine); then they recommend surgery hopefully before it occurs again (which is likely). She's also thinking ahead to May and wants me to come for a week. Since she's hardly ever asked me to do anything like this, and since I missed both of her emergency ovarian surgeries, I think I must do it.

I still want to plan to get together -- When we figure out the timing, I will keep you informed. she sees the doctor next week for follow up and is going to see if they can tentatively schedule the surgery. He may want her to do it sooner, in which case my only issue will be a lot of time away from work (which is currently low on my list of priorities). I'll be out for at least 2 weeks in late jan/early Feb for my bunion surgery, and then a week for Rachel and whatever time we plan. Good thing I have 400 hours of paid time off saved up.......... even with 2 weeks in alaska this year and a lot of time off for the holidays, I seem to accrue it as fast as I use it up.