three months' time. They embarked on a US tour that Pfahler booked himself, which was dubbed Hell Is on the Way, and saw them trek along the East Coast. Five days into it, Schwarzenbach blew his voice during a show in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After five songs, he left the stage; the following day, he visited a doctor, who found a polyp on his vocal chords. Schwarzenbach explained that it would require surgery and a two-week resting period to fully recover. They held a meeting and decided that their roadie Raul Reyes would stand in for Schwarzenbach for the remainder of the tour, and potentially for the first two weeks of an upcoming European trek. After the following show, however, Reyes forgot the lyrics and Schwarzenbach started singing again. By August 1992, Schwarzenbach was becoming cautious about his voice as it had "gotten progressively worse" over the three prior shows, which he attributed to the new songs being "very vocal oriented". Ahead of the European tour, they contacted Lookout! Records staff member Christy Colcord, who would act as their booking agent and tour manager for the duration of it. She explained that they were unsure whether to fly out to the continent, against the orders of Schwarzenbach's doctor. Concerned about the potential lose of money from not doing it, alongside the members' enthusiasm for wanting to do it, they ultimately embarked on the tour. Three weeks into it, while in Ireland, Schwarzenbach began coughing up blood; by this point, Colcord decided to take him to a hospital. In October 1992, he underwent surgery in London to remove the polyp. Though the doctors recommended he take a ten-day break, he started singing again after five days while in Norway. He noticed that his voice was two octaves higher, resulting in him breaking it back to what he previously sounded like. After the tour was over, Pfahler and Schwarzenbach lived in their van, as both had quit their jobs and moved their possessions into storage. Sometime later, Pfahler was forced to get arthroscopic knee surgery and then was diagnosed with Thoracic outlet syndrome. Bivouac was released on December 1, 1992 through the Tupelo and Communion labels; it was intended to be released two months earlier, but as Held was busy touring Europe with DUH, this left the labels inoperable during the interim. Pfahler attributed the delay to Held holding it back in order