Hernia x 2

Many moons... I mean months ago I began to notice a lump on the right side of my upper abdomen. It didn't hurt but it visually bothered me in the shower. At first, I thought it was likely scar tissue from my gall bladder surgery over 2 years ago. (See Gallbladder Misadventures for an equally informative read.) I finally asked the doctor about it, and he said that it was a hernia and that I could live with it for awhile as long as it didn't hurt or become discolored. So I lived with it... until it started to get bigger. Then I decided I better get it taken care of and went in again only to have surgery scheduled for a few days later, March 8th to be exact.

For the curious-- this hernia was called a ventral (or incisional) hernia which "occurs in an area of weakness caused by an incompletely-healed surgical wound. Clinically, incisional hernias present as a bulge or protrusion at or near the area of a surgical incision." Thank you, wikipedia. Let's turn to Web
MD for a bit more clarification- "A hernia occurs when an organ or fatty tissue squeezes through a hole or a weak spot in a surrounding muscle or connective tissue called fascia." Cool. So while this lump wasn't scar tissue, it was related to my gall bladder surgery as confirmed by the surgeon who did my gall bladder surgery and got the pleasure of doing the hernia repair as well. It's only fitting.

During surgery (which was laparoscopic,) the surgeon discovered... another hernia! To keep things interesting, this is a different type of hernia-- an umbilical hernia which is right near the belly button. Again, Web MD explains it nicely-- "In an umbilical hernia, part of the small intestine passes through the abdominal wall near the navel. Common in newborns, it also commonly afflicts obese women or those who have had many children." How rude! lol

I checked into the hospital at 6:30 am. Decided to drive myself there so Dave could stay home and get the kids off to school. I figured he would be able to come up to the hospital about the time I was coming out of surgery and waking up. I was right that he was able to, but when I woke up he was no where to be found. I was crying and feeling horrible. I kept asking for him and the nurses would just say "oh, give him some time, I'm sure he'll be here soon" or "maybe he's in the pharmacy picking up your medicine." Pharmacy? Pffft!

After about an hour of this, I asked a nurse to get me my purse, and I called him on my phone. He was at home. Really?! After not so politely inquiring as to why he was not at my side, Dave claimed that all the worries about getting each child to where they were suppose to be at a certain time took up all his brain cells and the only thing he was currently concentrating on was his next task which was picking Seth up from preschool at 11:30. He thought that it was after that that he was suppose to come to the hospital. Just another miscommunication to add to the Dave and Clair book. Of course, he said he would come right away, and it wasn't long before I heard the nurses greeting him in the hallway and letting him know that I was nothin' but mad. (While waiting for Dave, and probably because I was so emotional, the hospital chaplain stopped in and prayed for me. It must have been his prayer (or maybe it was the severe pain I was suffering) that kept me from slugging Dave in the gut when he arrived.)

Not to be too hard on Dave, but it bothered me immensely that he wasn't there. I needed my rock! I wanted to look in the eyes of the guy who had coached me through four labors and know that everything was going to be okay. The first thing Dave says when he sees me is that he is sorry and that he will surely be at my beck and call from here on out. Not sure if he meant during my recovery or forever after, but I'll take it. And he has been wonderful.

The first three days at home were rough. I honestly kept wondering why I was even sent home and not kept in the hospital as painful as it was and as poorly as I was getting around. Dave had to help me go from laying to sitting to standing and back again. I kept reading online how after a couple of days post op, one might like to begin resuming normal activities and there was just no way! I camped out in bed mostly during the day and set up on the couch some too. I mostly read books cause our laptop was not in working order. I think I've gone through at least 3 or 4 of the Hannah Swensen mysteries. Dave gets a chuckle every time he sees the cover of a new one- "Lemon Meringue Pie Murder," "Chocolate Fudge Cupcake Murder," etc. This was my view most of the time...


Dave got to take 3 days off- his boss is very awesome about stuff like this. And then my mom came on the afternoon of day 3! My mom was wonderful. All the chaos that was beginning to ensue was soon straightened out and the house was running smoothly again. I swear she hadn't been here more than 15 minutes and she'd already unloaded the dishwasher. The kids loved having her here and she was so busy and I'm so grateful for her. Unfortunately, a couple hours after her arrival Dave started feeling sick with a fever and vomiting and was down for a couple of days. My poor mom really had her work cut out for her! I wish Dave and I hadn't been so out of it at the same time! Mom stayed till Tuesday morning and thank goodness. School was out on Friday and Monday and that would have been disastrous without her. I always cry a little when Mom has to leave.

Everytime I moved it hurt badly. I was concerned that the pain was a stinging/buringing type of pain and nothing I read in my very vague post op instructions made me expect this. So after some encouragement (Thanks, Ella!) and because there was no one to call on a Saturday to ask about it, I went to the ER on day 5. The doc told me it was normal and that until the mesh that had been placed over the weak spots stabilized, it was going to move a little every time that I moved and that it was going to hurt. He prescribed percocet which he thought would be a little stronger than the lortab I had been taking. Well, I didn't notice much relief but at least I didn't have to worry that anything was abnormal. In fact, I quit taking the pain meds (except for the motrin) on day 8 because I had to be able to drive to get the kids where they needed to be.


I was pretty shakey still when mom left. Not quite ready to be on my own, but on my own I was. And after the kids were at school and I was home alone to rest the downstairs toilet flooded half of our downstairs! When I finally noticed what was happening, I was able to turn off the water. Ugh! I didn't think I was going to be able to get this cleaned up by myself and so I went knocking on a sweet neighbor's door and she helped me get the water up with a million towels and a mop. No small feat and I owe her bigtime! I didn't even know her very well but she had mentioned before that if I needed anything... Well, now that we have bonded over toilet water, maybe we will become better friends.

The toilet fiasco actually turned out to have it's good points. I wasn't going to lay there and have my neighbor clean up all up herself. I saw that I was able to bend over if I had too. I was able to wring out a mop if I had too. I saw that I could pretty much do anything I needed to do- but I would need to do it s l o w l y and not too much at once. So that gave me confidence as I began my solo journey of getting back to normal.

Am I normal yet? No. It's day 12 and I'm still tender. I was getting better and better each day, but a busy couple of days knocked me back a bit- but not too bad. I guess we always need those reminders to take our time and be easy on ourselves during recovery. The kids have been really good about helping me out and doing a little more than usual and of course Dave is being good to me. I hope to have this hernia misadventure behind me soon.