Is this too personal an operation to speak to those who know me? Tom Green featured himself getting a testicle removed on national TV. That included the severed organ and vomiting. I don’t know if he has gone in for reconstructive surgery, preferring to remain one of the elite sporting only one ball. There are cases, one is mentioned in the movie, In and Out, and one that entails the main character of J.P. Donleavy’s, The Onion Eaters involving a group of men with three. So perhaps a donor could be found for Tom if he desired.
But getting back to my predicament, I’ve been working too hard with my body for over 30 years—carrying and working with heavy ladders, climbing the same. And then restoring them to the roof of my vehicle, not to mention all the scrubbing, equipment, and furniture moving and other miscellaneous activities I’ve engaged in. In the past I also had a carpet cleaning business, using a truck mount, an even more strenuous undertaking.
I knew I had one hernia and suspected the second, but the doctor found a third. The doctor, by the way, is known as the Hernia King of Connecticut, because he performs more of these operations than anyone else. And since he has done more than anyone else, this self appellation as King has credence. After all, wouldn’t you want a delicate operation done by the most experienced guy?
To make a long story longer, the appointed day came, and because of issues with Patrick, my son, I ended up being dropped off at Bridgeport Hospital at the last minute. This made me quite tense and short tempered. I was not too worried about the surgery, having been assured I would not awake from the anesthesia in excruciating pain. I was upset, however, by the prospect of being late.
Fortunately I was dropped off on time. The third floor holding room had a sign telling us, the surgery attendees, to sit tight and they’d come and get us—no check-in; so I was never completely sure I was in the right place. Finally after 45 minutes of waiting, someone came out and informed us they’d be taking us soon, and my doctor’s name, Kenler, was mentioned. I took this as a good sign that I was in the right place.
At long last a couple of us were guided into a room to disrobe and put on “the gown with the open air solution for one’s ass”. My clothes went into a bag with my wedding ring. The nurse assured me that now, I was a free man. So I asked her if she had a wedding ring on—she did and added that as soon as my wife returned I would be asked to don said ring again, since I belonged to her—my window of opportunity closed as rapidly as it opened. I must say, in an aside, that this ring represents one of the most important things in my life beyond my integral involvement with life itself.
Then commenced a wonderful parade of intake personnel: data compiler, robe adjudicator, Indian anesthesiologist, Filipino scrub nurse, shaving specialist who informed me she had to “remove this sweater, but don’t worry it will grow back,” the PA who would assist the doctor, and of course, his lordship himself, the Hernia King, who drew on my abdomen a game plan, discussed risk analysis, and engaged in a brief but harmless badinage about his well-deserved appellation that should be just shortened to King.
One disconcerting aspect of this whole introduction was the PA telling me I’d be out of commission for not just two weeks, as I’d been told might be the case due to the healthy, virile specimen that I am, but six weeks of no lifting more than 10 pounds (then again, one report said 16 and another 20).
That is why I’m writing this disclosure of my medical affair. What else am I going to do? I can’t even vacuum the rug. The upside is the Valium—I am not afraid and in good spirits, just sore. I didn’t really want to go to work today anyway, and the drugs and dictum of having to rest on doctor’s orders, removes the guilt, shame, and fear that are sometimes my constant companions.
If this missive sparks in you, a desire to communicate with me, please write, either as a comment to this post or at larry@optonline.net.
This is my first real surgery. Just as becoming a father had done for me 30 years ago, this is another initiation for me into the human race of which I often observe but sometimes avoid engaging. More than ever, I feel we are all in this together, that I’m a part of you and you, a part of me.
I suspect grandchildren will be the next big thing for me. And finally, my dying will bring it all full circle.
A way a lone a last a loved along the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. – Finnegans Wake
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Views from the Bridge 