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ajm222: Quick note on waiting. As I said earlier my PCP said the same thing back in 2008 – hernia was small and I go with watch and wait. I ignored it. Never even considered losing weight (I am 5′ 6″ and 145 lbs). And continued to do things like lifting heavy stuff (not weight lifting but others in day to day life like lawn mower etc). I also continued jogging, basketball and yoga. No pain felt and I totally forgot about hernia until one day bam! The bump showed up.
I regret ignoring that advice by PCP. In a way I dug the hole myself for surgery. Once the bump showed up I feared I would die of the hernia or on surgery table since I never even had any kind of cuts by doctors before. All gory thoughts came up and I even wrote a secret will and apology letter to all those people who I thought would have to excuse me. 🙂 BTW I tried losing weight just before surgery and it was going nowhere. I incidentally gained weight a bit after surgery – now @149 lbs. I think once the hernia pain stopped after surgery, I lost my willingness to lose weight. Since all other blood work results are normal I am ignoring it for now. Time to start again I guess.
Anyways, losing weight is a good thing for you. It puts less stress on the pelvic floor and makes you better. To my knowledge nobody died by eating less but people definitely kill themselves by overeating. Unfortunately our system is set up such a way that killing myself by suicide is considered illegal but killing myself by eating junk food is perfectly legal and all insurance companies will pay all the bills. 🙂
And about surgeon – I will start with Google, back ground ratings, your ins company ratings, and if possible ask the nursing dept. in hospital where the doctor does surgeries. Also the nurse phone line of your ins company if there is one. Yes PCP too. And finally if you are really going for surgery, before you set up the appointment ask surgeon directly if you can talk to any of his old patients; You can say you are scared to death and that’s why you are asking. Yeah why not, if you are going to car mechanic to fix the transmission you have the right to find about his skills. No question is useless when you are facing surgery. A good surgeon understands that and will never object to any question.
Let me close this with a great surgeon’s advice to me. The body has its own mechanism and can protect itself mostly. It is built for defending itself and can withstand attacks. Once damage happens you can fix things but it will NEVER be the same. It is like wearing glasses to restore eye sight for myopia. You can see perfectly with glasses but if you compare your original eye sight (before myopia) with the eye sight with glasses, how do you feel? With glasses it may be 99% or may be even 99.99% but never be the same as original eye sight. You have to live with that fact. Instead of myopia, it can be with heart valve, a rod inserted in your thigh or anything else. Unfortunately we all have a shelf life and within that time, we all decay. It is inevitable. Everyone – you, me, your surgeon, mine and everyone living now – will be gone ultimately. That’s some soul food philosophy, Huh?
Take it easy and be well.