Surgery's a bitch

A few weeks before my big Grand Canyon double crossing I looked down in the shower and noticed a lump on one side of my groin that wasn't on the other. I tried doing the old "turn your head and cough" hernia exam on myself but the pressure on my finger felt the same on both sides so I figured I was doing it wrong. I wanted to get checked out before I started training for my June marathon. It turns out the surgeon found hernias on both sides. That led to a surgery scheduled for my week off after Christmas.

No problem. I'd relax on the couch for a week, not have to help put away Christmas decorations and just enjoy lots of football. I wasn't nervous going into surgery even though I've never had it before. I thought I might be nervous once I saw the inside of the operating room while lying on a gurney. But I don't remember anything after putting on my hospital gown. They must have given me something on the way to the OR.

I felt good and sleepy with no nausea or anything post-op. Problems didn't start until it was time to go home. All I had to do was pee and they'd let me go. It is very frustrating to have a bladder so full it hurts but still be unable to pee. Cue the catheter guy. Did he even use any KY jelly? That was the most painful thing I've ever endured and I still had some significant narcotics on board at the time. Needless to say I was jubilant when I squeezed out some urine on my own a few hours later and there would be no need of a late-night visit to catheter guy.

Post-op day one wasn't bad. I took lots of ibuprofen but no narcotics because I didn't want any constipation. My incisions for the endoscopic surgery were small and the pain was manageable. I walked kind of stooped and slow and had no appetite but so far it was no worse than I expected.

Post-op day two things became much worse. My pelvic wall felt like it was on fire from the inside. The incisions sites swelled up and bruised like weird skin tumors on my belly. My nether regions down below turned red, tender and swelled like a grotesque grapefruit. Every movement was painful. Laughing was so excruciating that nothing seemed funny. And forget about coughing, I'd rather just suffocate in my own phlegm. The stool softeners got things moving enough that I resorted to using some narcotics to take the edge off, but they didn't give me the really good stuff, just some percocet. And then the stool softeners became my worst enemy when they caused such bad abdominal cramps that I had to stop using them.

That misery persisted for several days. Seven days after surgery I had to return to work. I used to think that people having outpatient surgery should suck it up and quit whining after a week or so and just get back to their normal lives. Now I am more sympathetic. I shuffled around work that first week in pain and feeling like I had the flu the whole time. My groin still looked like there was a hernia because of the swelling. I really didn't start to feel almost normal until a full 14 days post-op. And here I am 3 weeks post-op and I still have some occasional lower abdominal pain.

I'm normally not much of a complainer. I keep it to myself when I'm sick and I like to act tough. But I feel like I should record the hard truth about recovery from double hernia surgery so the next time I feel like telling someone to stop being such a wimp I can read this and remember.