Hernia Repair Surgery

Having a hernia is bad, but having a hernia repaired can be worse. At least for the first three weeks after surgery -- especially if you're over 50 years old.

My hernia surgery was to repair a large hernia I had fixed 20-something years ago. It popped out while I was surfing. While having a hernia wasn't acutely painful, it did offer a vague feeling that my guts were hanging out of my abdomen if I stood up for over ten minutes. It just felt "wrong" like there was a weakness in my right groin.

Surgery for a hernia begins like most other surgeries. You make an appointment, you show up at the surgery center, pay an enormous co-pay, and then eventually are escorted to a little room where you are requested to don your special hospital clothes (paper shower cap, paper booties, and a gown that lets your butt flap around in the wind).

Eventually you're escorted onto the big surgical table and there is a blanket that looks like bubble wrap. But there's hot hair blowing into it -- kind of like a hair dryer from the 1950's. Once they put warm bubble-wrap on you don't even care that they're poking some giant-ass needle in your arm.

Next thing I know I'm in a recovery room with other people, and my groin hurts like hell! The nurse arrives and asks me in a pleasant low voice how I'm doing. I'm trying to be polite and not shout but it feels like someone has my right nut in a vice and it's extremely hard to talk softly when the vice is tightening on my right nut.

The nurse reappears with crackers, water and a giant Vicodin which I gobble up gratefully. Now the vise is no longer tightening on my right nut, but the pain is throbbing like my insides are tisted in a knot. The nurse politely asks me to "quantify" the pain on a scale of one to ten. It's really hard to concentrate on a scale of one to ten when your insides are twisting in a knot, and cracker crumbs are all over your face, and your ass is hanging out of a gown. I said something like "nine" and was rewarded with another Vicodin and more water and soda crackers. Now I'm feeling pretty good until some alarm starts ringing because my blood pressure is too high. By relaxing with the Vicodin, and finding the "zen within" the ringing alarm stops and I can go home.

Once home I fall esleep and wake up in two hours to pee. Only to get out of bed is a slow, very painful procedure that involes rolling over in slow-motion, eventually getting one foot on the floor, then the other foot, and then the extremely painful part of lifting yourself up from this half-ass position to full upright. It feels exactly like there is a giant vice grip pinching the hell out of your right side. It's so painful you feel like you're going to pass out, and a couple of times I was so light-headed I saw stars. But then, once mastering the "getting up" maneuver, you waddle, very slowly, and bowlegged, as your nuts are the size of pool balls and your nutsack is so swollen it's stuck to the side of your legs, into the bathroom.

Once in the bathroom you make a new discovery. You have to pee, but dispite the agony you've endured to get there, nothing wants to come out. It's really quite discouraging. There is no relief. I found that standing at a 45-degree angle bent over the toilet and achieving a total zen-like state of relaxation allows the dribble to start. I'm willing to settle for a dribble , it's a hell of a better option than a cathether! By now it's 20-minutes later and my forehead is resting on the cabinet behind the toilet so I can keep this 45-degree angle without falling over on my face, but the pee is still slowly dribbling out.

This process is repeated every two hours throughout the night. Apparently, when you get a hernia operation after age 50, all your body parts tend to swell up. Body parts like your bladder, and your prostate and all the great things that help you pee. But the exercise of getting out of bed or off the couch to pee is good medicine, even though it may not feel like it at the time. Just remind yourself how awful it would be to have some nurse who was just beaten by her husband cramming a tube down your tiny little bruised weenie. Suddenly, the whole painful process of getting out of bed and standing there dribbling over the toilet will feel a whole lot better.

Within a few days my privates were looking like I would imagine you'd find on some huge black stud like "Shaft". Everything was huge, black, and swollen. Even though I was looking like a "bad mother..." I can't walk without shuffling bowlegged like an 80-year-old as my nuts were so swollen they wanted to stick to my legs. I tried wearing bunhuggers, and finally tried on a jockstrap -- which offered major support and changed my life.

The pain pills were good, at first. But they make you constipated and when everything hurts, taking a dump becomes a major feat. Just getting off the toilet by yourself is a major deal. So be sure and eat tons of bran, and metamucil. Stool softeners often contain salt, which makes your blood pressure soar. Check with your pharmacy as there's some stool softeners made with calcium instead of salt. They cost more, but won't effect your blood pressure.

So now, three weeks later I'm almost normal. I can pee standing vertical, and the pain is almost gone and life is becoming good again. Just remember, things will get better. Your nuts will eventually shrink and turn back to your original color, and you might even have a few pain pills left over for other painful events in your life that are still to come.