A Slight Detour

Post-surgical update:
This surgery is my first time under the knife. Not a bad track record, really, having made it without sustaining major damage through my 50 years of life on earth!

The actual surgery went very well, and I was cared for with genuine attention by the people at the Surgery Center. In at 10 AM and home by 3:30 PM. Anesthesia was still flowing through my veins so I felt remarkably good, but very tired. I went to bed. Got up later in the evening knowing I had to eat something (having fasted since midnight) and that's when I blacked out unconscious. My wife could not get any response from me so dialed 911. The EMTs arrived and my vital signs checked out okay, but as a precaution, I was strapped into a chair and carried down to the ambulance. Again, another first for me! ER was efficient and they tested me for everything, but the saline drip seemed to be the thing that improved my condition. Several hours later I was back in bed again at home, more exhausted than before.

The last several days I was mostly flat in bed trying to sleep. Pain meds don't seem to do much for pain, but induce a weird non-sleep relaxation which unleashed a parade of bizarre and exceedingly random images that I get to stare at until it is replaced by another cruelly boring thing. I'm talking paper clips folks! Yup, staring at a paper clip.. . or a pile of paper to recycle; or people I don't know repeatedly saying things like, " Wow, carnelian simple must have pushed that plant to crackers. But it's really a good sky. Couldn't have meant to hurt the rust spot on the squid. . ." I mean, what the heck are drugs good for if they aren't making you feel better? My iPod helps to keep the bizarre circus at bay. . .

Anyway, the four inch long incision in my lower abdomen is a reminder of why I feel like I've been cut in half. Simplest movements seem to rely on muscles traversing the region. Full recovery and return to full strength will apparently be many weeks away. Just because the terms "common" and "routine" are often applied to a hernia repair surgery, it is still having parts of my internal anatomy opened to the light of day for a bit. In the course of this process I have been looking at the devastation and suffering of people I know and of the global catastrophes that have recently transpired. I am blessed to have good health, insurance coverage, a warm home, friends and loved ones who care, and a million other blessings. I really have nothing to complain about and that is something to be most grateful for.

Still, I'd have preferred two weeks in Hawaii instead.