Click.

Recovery is starting to get easier, and that's a wonderful thing. I have returned to work, on "easy duty" status- office type stuff, not getting back into the classroom for a bit still. I'm having less chest pain, but it's definitely not gone. My muscles are still pretty sore/inflexible, and not able to take much stress, but once again, healing. One irritation that has actually gotten a bit more frequent is something my surgeon told me to be ready for, and it's a little weird. Since I have a foreign object lodged in my chest cavity- the strut attached to my ribs that is supporting my sternum until new cartilage can do so, and that cartilage is growing, and in general things are changing inside- my chest will occasionally "click" from the inside. This is apparently from things doing a bit of rubbing or grinding against one another- for example, the bar on my ribs or the new cartilage I guess. I don't totally understand it, but what I do know is that it feels disgusting. It feels like something is broken and loose and moving around inside my chest. Sick. I guess it is supposed to pass with time. I felt it once and a while at the beginning of recovery, but it's happening quite a bit now- many many times per day and night. Sometime it will happen with every breath for a little while. It's a bit distracting. All part of getting better though.

On another topic- I hate that I can't commute via bicycle right now. Alison and I currently own and pay insurance on three vehicles (we're trying to sell one), and they are sucking too much money. Automobiles tend to do nothing but take money from your pocket quickly, and my pickup has been exceptional at that recently. I just dumped a ton of money into diagnosing a IPDM (electronic relay box basically) that was causing the engine to randomly shut down (and wouldn't store any sort of diagnostic trouble code). Now that that's done, I've driven less than one hundred miles, and I've got a code coming through for a large EVAP system leak. It could be something as simple as a bad gas cap, but maybe something costly too. Not sure yet, and I can't really do much auto work for obvious reasons. Bugger. I guess I have two other cars.

If you are not recovering from surgery you should ride your bike to work instead of paying too much money on your silly car or truck. That's my view. You'll get hooked on it and wonder how you never did it before- trust me.

I'll keep you all posted on the surgery recovery, and I'm sure the truck issues will get solved. Later.