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| Surprise hernia surgery present, Stanley the Gonk |
This week we made the executive decision to cook a big pot of soup to last us most of the week. It’s been over a decade of dinners and we have never opted to rely on left-overs. On Tuesday morning, hubby sent me a text that he developed bouts of nausea and excruciating stomach pain. He was convinced he had food poisoning.
Within the hour he was convinced that it was appendicitis…thanks Dr Google!
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| Inguinal hernia, source |
Within minutes of that message, he informed me that he had left work and was in the Emergency Room of the nearest hospital. Having already gone through triage, he was sat in under-decorated bowels of an otherwise beautifully appointed modern hospital.
I hopped in the car and met him there. Seated among the sick and troubled, he informed me that his hernia–a constant companion for 15 years–suddenly changed today; going from a 2” x 2” malleable mound on his lower belly to a hard, immovable, protuberant fist-sized lump.
The nausea is an interesting response to a physical change. I once had a friend who was a quadriplegic– she told me that she would have these interesting somatic responses to having her shoes improperly placed. Once or twice, her carer pulled on her sneakers and a toe bent almost completely back on her foot, while my friend had no feeling from mid back down, her body responded to ‘something wrong’ by causing her to sweat profusely, until the problem was corrected. Hubby’s vomiting was likely related to the colon being trapped in a region where he did not feel any pain.
Anyway, all of the hospital staffers working in this brightly lit, plastic-chair appointed, humming, dungeon of an emergency room all looked like they grew up on Conklin street. I told hubby and he chuckled through his pain. He had no idea what that meant, but needed to keep his spirits up.
Eventually–five hours after his arrival–he was taken back to be seen. Doctors come in, peered, went. Nurses took blood, urine, and more blood. The first doctor came back with the chief to gawp at the oddly placed, immovable lump that was my husband’s hernia. He poked it, prodded, it, and eventually leaned on it with all of his weight–it looked to me like he was doing a push-up. It did not move. The docs in the room marveled some more and left.
In their absence I sang two of my favorites for hubby, from Cheap Trick’s Live from Budokan, ‘I Want you to Want Me’, and from the Great American Song Boook, ‘Mack the Knife’
Then the nurse came again, taking more blood, and alerted us to the impending CT Scan. But before that latest scan, doctor one and a different doc rolled in with the ultrasound machine. One drove the wand back and forth, snapping stills of every angle of the fist-sized lump. As they were walking out, these two docs stopped at the curtain, pulled out a phone and suggested that we smile for the selfie that they wanted to take with our magnificent hernia. I did peace sign and duck face, and hubby raised bunny ears behind my head, crossing his eyes. And they were gone.
The scan happened and hubby told me to go home and get some sleep. He was admitted. The following day would be surgery day, and our cat still needed feeding.
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| (generic medical students selfie) |
Two things, I have had 2 surgeries at this fabulous hospital and continue to sing their praises. So hubby was in good hands (but seriously, researching surgery stats from the past let me know that there was little to fret about). The chief of surgery was called in to complete the procedure, and the seven residents who followed in his wake were impressed with the coolness of the hernia.
To cut to the chase, emergency surgery happened a day after he got nauseated at work. The procedure took about an hour–with no surprises, and hubby got a full Brazilian as part of the deal. After the procedure he stayed overnight for observation and danced out of the place the following day. Recovery takes a number of weeks.
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| leaving day |
While this was all happening, I couldn't contact friends or family, and I didn't want to add to any fear that may exist about surgical complications, anesthesia, or medical mistakes. So I cracked jokes, said sweet things, and made runs to and fro to get hubby things to make him feel better. Stanley, for example, is a gonk that was on sale in the hospital gift shop. Hubby calls him a good luck charm. This week can’t end soon enough tho…ha!
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