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Post surgery thoughts
Two quick things about this – in response to the above post by “Mesh” handle.
1. Nobody on the face of earth can force you to have surgery – not your dad, mom, kids or your surgeon or the POTUS or even the SCOTUS. It is COMPLETELY your own choice. Against your wishes even a barber cannot cut your hair. At least that is what the rules are in the USA. It is illegal to commit suicide but VERY LEGAL to eat fat and full of Cholesterol foods and die of heart attack. Agree? So to have surgery or not, to have mesh or not is completely your choice.
Having said the above here is the second one
2. Can you hold and wait? 99% of the good doctors and surgeons NEVER want to cut you up for ANYTHING. A good surgeon wants to FIX your stuff; so your life will be better. But if you go to a surgeon and ask him to cut you up since YOU FEEL something inside, he will not agree until HE IS CONVINCED that cutting up is GOOD for you. Many years ago I went to a surgeon for another problem and he refused to cut and told me “Remember, anything that comes to you naturally is gone for good once it is gone and can never regain the same condition but we may be able to fix something.” It is like wearing eye glasses. Remember your vision at age 10 without glasses? You can wear glasses and restore your vision to 99.9% after myopia but you will never have that 100% natural vision that you had once.
Again having said that, my dad waited all his life and died with the hernia. He was told that he was to be careful; and he never really had to lift anything heavy in life. So he was fine till his death at 66. My brother waited 20+ years and had hernia both sides and finally had surgery one year ago. Was he lucky to live without surgery and no entrapment? May be but a few months before surgery he refused even to lift a small backpack since he felt those pains heavily. After surgery he lamented how he lost his 20 years with this stupid IH and could have gone for surgery much earlier. I waited from my first diagnosis by my PCP in 2007 to 2014 when the bump developed and was giving me trouble.
Should YOU WAIT? read the first point again. Your body, your health and your choice. My PCP actually said “watchful waiting” and not lift anything heavy. In his words “be careful.” But I ignored his advice assuming I was a superman. Growth of IH proved that I am a STUPID IDIOTIC mortal after all.
If you wait, can the IH be trapped and may force you to go to ER? The answer is “Nobody knows.” It is so because every case is different. If you know what the word “chaos” is, you know what I mean. If not, may I suggest you watch Jurrasic Park movie where Malcom the mathematician explains what chaos is? How strong is your pelvic floor? How good are your genes and many other factors come in. Even the surgeon who puts mesh in your body can only hope (depending on the historic facts that whenever the surgeon did it earlier, it went OK) that things go well. It is like driving a car on highway. Most people go fine but isn’t it dangerous on highway and can one die? Yes sir it is dangerous if you or the other driver is drunk or doze off. And yes every day people die on highways.
So should you stop driving? Same analogy works here too. I had a mesh and my life looks better than before. I spent money and beleived Dr. Goodyear to do nice work. He did great work. Whatever worked for me – watchful waiting, mesh may or may not work for you. What to do? Believe your gut or instincts and if you are a believer of God, do believe in Him too.
Final straw or nail in the coffin is this – everyone dies. Some die of accidents, some of heart attack, some of anxiety and some of surgeon’s faults and some of simple hernias. So do not worry. If one is dying today, those living need not be happy that they are alive because the living people now will die later. Too blunt; huh? Sorry about that.
Best of luck