John's Hernia Is Fixed

A while back, John shared his thoughts on his upcoming surgical procedure, designed to keep his internal fragments, bits, and snippets from hideously leaking out through his belly button.

Yesterday was The Day. We got up at 6 AM (yes, 6 comes in a PM and an AM!), I had coffee and a breakfast bar while John grumpily fasted. We drove the 60-some miles to the hospital in Tucson, and got there in plenty of time for his 8:30 appointment.

He registered, received a handful of paper work, and eventually was called into the pre-op room (or, as I like to call it, the "Staging Cubicle Where Everyone Who Walks By Can See You Naked"). When he was prepped -- wristbanded, gowned (with that oh-so-cute back closure), and semi-drugged -- they let me go back to see him once more before he was whisked into surgery:



After a few minutes they kicked me out, and I spent the next few hours reading in the waiting room, sharing it with a woman madly crocheting a border on a huge piece of flannel, an aging ex-hippie guy with a long, gray ponytail and a spider web tattoo covering his elbow, and a woman with a new iPad who kept trying to show her companion, who was enrapt but unbelieving that you didn't have to do anything -- not even press a button -- to change the orientation of the text when you turned the iPad sideways. Fun times.

John's doctor talked to me after the surgery and told me everything had gone well, and the nurses would let me know when John was out of post-op. After another couple hours he was ready for visitors, so I left my little group of oddly fascinating fellow-waiters, and found him groggy and thirsty, IV-drips still in place, waiting for the final tests and paperwork before discharge.

After all the technicalities had been performed, I got him home where he and his pain meds became best buddies for the evening. Today, as I type, he is napping, which he has been doing on and off for most of the day. They told him he would be hurting today, and he is. But each day will get better, and pretty soon all that will be left from his ordeal are seven tiny scars forming a large circle around his belly button, no longer a potential exit strategy for his internal fragments, bits and snippets.