Conquering The Battle of the “Bulge”

I recently had Robotic Laparoscopic hernia surgery. My hernia was the result, no doubt, of a lifetime of tossing around literally thousands of hay bales. I had a big hernia due to my own fault of waiting much too long to revisit the surgeon. He said my hernia was big! As a result, my whole right side is one big piece of mesh.

As a result of today’s modern medical advances, hernia surgery is no big deal these days. I remember guys getting hernia surgery years ago and were in the hospital for a few days. I was an outpatient; checked in early in the morning and checked out midafternoon, which made me happy and Medicare even happier I’m sure. Due to Plan F Medicare Supplement, I did not pay anything. It reminded me of the long ago days when I went to a VA Hospital. It is so nice not to have to pay a bunch of co pays and get “phantom” invoices for months afterward from all kinds of medical places and doctors I’ve never heard of back in the days when I had Medicare “Advantage”. It was no advantage I found.

I found Robotic Laparoscopic hernia surgery very fascinating indeed! Three small slits about 1 inch wide were made in my upper groin and all repairs and mesh were accomplished through them! Also, the surgeon used robotic arms to do all the surgery! When he mentioned he was going to use robotic surgery, I had fears of looking up and seeing Robby the Robot from Lost in Space working on me! I’m sure surgeons love robotic surgery because they can probably come right in from the golf course and not even need to scrub up or wear a surgical gown. They can do surgery in their golf outfit and even keep their cleated golf shoes on perhaps.

Of course, being analytically minded, I did a lot of research beforehand and even viewed the whole process on YouTube. The whole process was much smoother than I expected. Recovery time is also much more rapid with this type of surgery. I was prescribed some powerful pain meds for post surgery pain. However, since they can be addicting, and due to my addictive nature, I did not take them. I “toughed” it through with doses of 700 mgs of OTC Ibuprofen I had on hand. Actually, the pain was not as bad as I thought it would be given my infamous extremely low pain tolerance. When my first wife would get exasperated with my low pain tolerance, she used to say, “It’s a good thing men can’t have babies”! Ah, a good thing indeed!

Would I go through it again? Well, permit me to put it this way: Since surgery, I have been very careful not to pick up anything too heavy again. If I had my way, from now on I would pick up nothing heavier than “lifting” someone’s spirits!

###Mike###