Postponed tests and narrow escapes.

Yesterday was a day of decisions, some not so smart. It has been decided to postpone the procedure to attack the stenosis in my esophagus as it seems certain that, as positional and intermittent as it is, there is STILL leakage from the esophagus out through the old J-drain wound channel in my back. It has been firmly decided that to do so would only aggravate it. I have thus FINALLY persuaded my docs to give me that referral to the specialist at UAB who presumably has better diagnostic tools to find the elusive little bastard leak and deal with it AND the stenosis. That was the smart decision.

The not-so-smart decision, although I'm darned if I know what I could have done differently, involved an eighteen wheeler, I-459 between I-20 and I-59, and the instant reflexive decisions I made to avoid said trucker. Headed to pick up Rosey, I was coming up in the center lane behind the truck, which was in the right lane, when he swung over without warning, as truckers do, to give berth to a tree cutting crew that was on the side of the road to the right. There was someone in the left lane behind me so I whipped into the right lane the trucker just vacated. When I got halfway past him, with the cones on the berm coming up, he switched back to the right lane, forcing me to take a decision between getting under his trailer or hitting the cones. To go to the right of the cones would have put me in the grass where the crew was and I surely would have flipped, likely killing some of them, not to mention myself. So I did my best, accelerated, shaved the distance in inches between me and the trailer, and hit the cones.

With the Lord riding shotgun, I made it out the other side having missed the truck, crew, and remained upright and moving but having torn the right undercarraige of the Camry for a fare-thee-well. The right front inner wheel well cover is missing, torn away. The reservoir for the windshield washer fluid is smashed at the bottom, the front wrap-around "fender" is gone at its extremity and the wheel well cover in the rear is damaged and making a horrific sound. The car was, however, drivable.

The truck, of course, kept on going and I got no ID on it except, ironically, that the license plate on the trailer, read "Connecticut." Pretty funny, huh?

Except, of course, that Rosey is less than pleased. The deductible on the insurance is $500.00 (crap!) so I'll have to see today what the butcher's bill is, but I'm darned lucky to be alive. If it's not one thing, it's another. Oi veh. And I was having such a good week otherwise.