A Pain in a Very Delicate Place

At 78, I’d like to report that I injured myself lifting 200 pounds or driving a golf ball 250 yards. Either story would do wonders for my reputation.

Unfortunately, I was doing something else, trying entirely too hard. What, exactly, is between me and the Almighty. I felt a sharp pain in my left groin, but I was late for golf, so I did the sensible thing. I ignored it and played.

By the time I got home, the pain was worse. Then I undressed for a shower and spotted a bulge in a neighborhood where surprises are especially unwelcome. I sat down.

Naturally, I consulted artificial intelligence. The diagnosis was a hernia. I asked six different ways whether it might heal itself. AI was as sympathetic as a parking meter. No.

I studied the surgical options: open, laparoscopic, robotic. All involved strangers rearranging things in a place I prefer to manage personally. Then I read about anesthesia and memory problems in older people. As if I needed another reason to forget why I’d walked into a room.

Fortunately, I’m a Mayo Clinic patient and met with the woman who heads hernia surgery. She’d performed thousands of operations and teaches other surgeons. I didn't like the procedure, but I liked her résumé.

Surgery was scheduled for a Monday, weeks away. My strategy for worry is simple: postpone it. I scheduled my panic for the Saturday before surgery. When Saturday arrived, I rescheduled for Sunday. By Sunday afternoon, dread had ignored my calendar and moved in.

I arrived at Mayo at 6 a.m. Monday. The nurses were kind, reassuring, and suspiciously cheerful for people sending me into an operating room.

Everybody seemed confident. Everybody except the patient.

When they wheeled me in, the room was enormous. Bright lights, blinking monitors, machines everywhere, doctors and nurses moving with practiced confidence. On television, I watch these scenes from my recliner, usually with ice cream. This time I was the fellow on the table.

They’d padded my back and backside because the operating table was hard. I appreciated the courtesy, though I wondered what kind of table requires protective equipment just to lie on it.

A nurse said, “We’re going to put you to sleep now.” I stared at the ceiling. Still awake. Still awake. What if the anesthesia didn’t work and they started without me?

Then I opened my eyes in recovery. My nephew Jason was standing in the doorway making ridiculous faces. My first sight after surgery was a grown man behaving like a six-year-old. Never have I been so happy to see an idiot.

My son Corey was there too, behaving considerably better. They stayed through the afternoon while I tried to get released. The surgery had finished before noon, but Mayo had one final requirement: I had to pee. Otherwise, they might need to insert a you-know-what where no you-know-what belongs.

I eventually passed the test. It felt like urinating fire, a sensation that continued for two days. My stomach, with three fresh surgical openings, felt like it had lost an argument with a lawn mower.

By 3 p.m., I wanted to go home. Everything was moving at the speed of a government permit. I asked a wonderful nurse named Marilyn if she could speed things along. Corey said there was no way I’d be out before 5. I bet him I’d be in a wheelchair by 4.

At 3:59, Marilyn rolled me toward the car, where Corey and Jason were waiting. After weeks of worry, I’d finally won something. Naturally, we hadn’t bet money.

Three weeks later, I’m feeling good. My surgeon says no golf for another two weeks. As for the activity that started this whole business, I’ve learned not to be in such a hurry.

They say haste makes waste.
I learned that sometimes haste doesn’t make waste.

It makes a hernia.