Cut open and sewn shut

Stapled shut, actually. Meaning, obviously, that my surgery has taken place as schedulled and is done with.

The blinding pain in now a very mild pain and a generous handful of soreness in the muscles that were peeled from the bone for my hernia to be excised. I was delighted to know that, unlike what I had previously been led to believe, my vertebra were never separated during surgery, nor have they been fused together by means of staples nor has the disc between them been removed. That said, nothing has been done to impart my stability, so I should recover swiftly and fully. Fingers crossed!

For all of you expecting to undergo surgery (and dreading it), let me put (some) of your fears to rest: It barely hurts. Really, it doesn't. and don't you dread that awful moment when you're in the surgery room, waiting for the anaesthetic to kick in; you're given a pre-anaesthetic shot even before you're taken form your room, and by the time you get there you'll be half assleep anyway. And by the time the anaesthesia does kick in, you'll be much too out of it to know it. Next thing you'll know you'll be lying in the recovery room just glad it's all behind you and saying something utterly silly (I know I did). So just relax, really.

Of course all is not peaches and cream. the anaesthetic messes up your muscles, so you may lose some abilities, for a short period after the surgery (say, some 12 to 24 hours), that is. Quite common among such lost abilities is the ability to urinate. And even though you woun't be allowed to eat or drink anything for the whole day, you'll have been put on saline for so long it's not unusual for someone to have some three oints of urine in their bladder (I know I did). And, unable to pee, I had to be given a urethral catheter. Let me tel you this much about it: I'll never understand this as a fetish. Really, I don't think I ever will. It hurt like hell. That was most defenitely the worse part about this whole ordeal. The soreness and the pain around the incision are expected to subside soon enough and they're not so bad, really.

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark has two smaller hernias that haven't given him any grief, and may never do. Fingers crossed! Please!