Navigating Hernia Surgery Featuring Mike Tresca - About IBD Podcast Episode 166

Navigating Hernia Surgery Featuring Mike Tresca – About IBD Podcast Episode 166

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Amber is joined by her husband, Mike, who recently underwent robotic hernia surgery. In this candid conversation, they explore the entire experience—from the initial discovery of the hernia to the surgery itself and the recovery process that followed. Mike shares his insights on the challenges he faced, including unexpected pain, dietary adjustments, and the importance of having a supportive caregiver. They also discuss the nuances of patient-provider communication and how to navigate the complexities of post-surgery life. Whether you’re considering surgery or simply curious about the process, this episode offers valuable lessons and firsthand experiences that might resonate with you.

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Transcript (Machine-Generated)

[Music: IBD Dance Party]

I’m Amber Tresca and this is About IBD. I’m a medical writer and patient educator who lives with a j-pouch due to ulcerative colitis. It’s my mission to educate people living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis about their disease and to bring awareness to the patient journey.

Welcome to Episode 166!

People with IBD may have abdominal surgery to treat their disease. Unfortunately, that comes with a risk of developing a hernia, which is a weak spot in the abdominal wall. Organs or tissue in the abdomen may push through it and cause symptoms. Parastomal hernias after ostomy surgery are especially common.

Today, I’m once again joined by my husband, Mike, because he recently had robotic hernia surgery. We discuss his experience, including how he discovered that he had a hernia, the diagnostic process, the actual surgery, and his recovery.

Mike shares about how he managed his pain, why he had to change his diet, and what it was like getting back to his regular activities, including weightlifting.  Mike doesn’t live with IBD, but his experiences will be helpful for anyone who is considering hernia surgery.

One programming note that I want to make you aware of is that we discuss returning to intimacy after having surgery. We don’t get specific, but we are a married couple, so if that’s something you want to skip, that discussion begins at about the one hour mark and goes for about 8 minutes.

Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

Amber 00:01:25  Mike, welcome to About IBD.

Mike 00:01:28  I’m back. Do you miss me?

Amber 00:01:31  Well, you know, in order for me to miss you, you would have to go away.

Mike 00:01:36  Well, your listeners miss me. I’ve been…I’ve only been in two episodes, so this is my third.

Amber 00:01:42  Has it only been two? Are you sure about that?

Mike 00:01:45  Pretty sure I remember them well, we’ve had. The second one was quite the doozy. So. Yeah, I’m pretty sure.

Amber 00:01:52  Okay. I thought it might be more than that. All right. This is number three. I was thinking it’s, it’s almost like once a year. Not quite, because the show has been going for longer than three years, but the last time was last year when we went through your colonoscopy journey and we talked about what that was like for you.

Mike 00:02:14  This is the fourth one then.

Amber 00:02:16  Okay.

Mike 00:02:16  Yeah, yeah, I forgot I completely forgot about the colonoscopy one. So this is the fourth one.

Amber 00:02:20  Oh okay. All right okay. So let’s level set for our listeners. First off Mike, give a brief introduction as to who you are.

Mike 00:02:32  I am your loving spouse. And, I also am a gamer. I am, I’ve been working in corporate America for 25 years. that was our anniversary, work anniversary. And our wedding anniversary is in a couple of days. So happy anniversary, my love. but my day job is mostly marketing communications, so I do a lot of, engagement on social media and the web on behalf of a fortune…let’s say fortune 100 companies. So, yeah. That’s me. Does that help? Is that enough?

Amber 00:03:00  Yeah. It does. All right, Mike, I did invite you here today with a specific purpose. And that was because last year you had a colonoscopy unrelated to what’s going on now. But this year you had another situation in that you discovered that you had a hernia. And so you had hernia surgery a few months ago. And I thought it would be helpful for listeners to hear about what that surgery was like for you, because it is actually…a pretty…it’s pretty common in general.

Amber 00:03:36  And then it’s fairly common, especially for people who’ve had abdominal surgery, which you have never had anything before right now.

Mike 00:03:44  First of all, I was lured here under false pretenses. I thought we were going to talk about horror movies. I’m on the wrong podcast.

Amber 00:03:52  No, we’re not going to talk about horror movies today.

Mike 00:03:54  No, I knew, I knew I was getting into. Yeah. So, Yeah. So did you want me to just sort of describe how we got to this point or what? What would you like to know?

Amber 00:04:03  Well, I’ll feed you some questions, that’s usually how this works. 

Mike 00:04:07  Okay. Yeah..

Amber 00:04:08  That’s right. Yeah. So let’s start first with how you discovered that you had the hernia because it was you that found it. And then you had to proceed on to getting, to, to engaging a health care provider in order to treat it. So tell me how you found it and what that felt like.

Mike 00:04:27  Yeah. So, I do lift weights.

Mike 00:04:30  So there’s always a concern that you just don’t want to push yourself too hard or potentially hurt yourself and, wearing a belt, after weightlifting. So I wasn’t wearing a weight belt, but I was, just…when I wear belts for work or during the day, I started to notice that it was chafing, and that’s new. So. And then there was sort of puffiness sort of in that area, you know, above the groin. So and it’s one of those things that like, I feel like we even discussed it and it was like you couldn’t see it, but I could feel it for sure. So I have a physical with my, my general practitioner every year. we got into the habit, which was good. You know, I should be doing it anyway. But we got into that habit because, I would often have to have physicals for camping with scouts. So I, I had the opportunity to sort of see him, and I brought it up, and pretty quickly he told me, yep, that’s a hernia.

Mike 00:05:23  So, you know, I had suspected it was…it wasn’t painful to start, but certainly I started to notice it. And I was like, yeah, this feels like maybe that’s what happened. And then he he confirmed it.

Amber 00:05:34  Okay. So what did it feel like though, when you sort of, touched the area yourself? And then what did he do to confirm that it was a hernia?

Mike 00:05:45  it’s a lot, a lot touching. So you sort of you sort of, you know, it’s puffy and then and the other thing that would happen is it would sort of be worse on some days than others, which was always fascinating to me. So like some days they’d be like, oh, it’s gone. I don’t it doesn’t feel like that. And other days it definitely was. And of course you’re concerned it’s something else, right? So I was always like, I don’t know what else it could be, but I didn’t want it to be something, problematic. So for a little while, I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t there because it would come and go, but basically you would feel it, and it was puffy.

Mike 00:06:13  It didn’t hurt. but it didn’t fell like it belonged there. And it was. And, you know, again, the other thing is there’s two sides, obviously. So it seems a little elevated. on the one side. Right. So I was like.

Amber 00:06:24  Two sides on your abdomen. You’re saying your abdomen didn’t…one side looked different than the other.

Mike 00:06:29  Correct. So you could compare and contrast. Right. So, yeah. So that’s how it started, where I was like, this doesn’t seem typical. And then he did the same. So he touched and within probably so within a few seconds of just examining me, he said it was an inguinal hernia. So I was like, oh, okay. So it wasn’t just my imagination, right.

Amber 00:06:47  And then he recommended that you go and get more care and have somebody else look at it. So what happens next?

Mike 00:06:57  Well, it was interesting because his response I love my doc, by the way, was, hey, everybody gets them.

Mike 00:07:05  You’re at the age where you’ll get them. There’s not something you did wrong, which I thought was interesting. It’s the first thing I ask was sort of, did I do this to myself? Was there something I did in particular? You know, because I left waits? The concern was that I had overtrained. And I still don’t know that that’s not the case. But he was like, it happens quite frequently for lots of reasons. It’s not tied to a specific thing. but he sort of said, you know, that you can have surgery to patch it up if you want, but it’s really not a crisis. And he was really very clear on that. He was like, it’s not a big deal at your own pace. Whenever you want to deal with it, it’s fine. You don’t have to get it. Like it’s not like it’s dangerous or life threatening or anything like that. And I appreciated that. so I definitely asked for a referral, which he gave. And I knew this was…is not a quick surgery.

Mike 00:07:52  So there was there was a lot of other complicating factors just to get all this right. But it was good. It put me on the path. So yeah, he, he did not…there was no urgency. There was no concerns. He was just saying, if this is something that bothers you, we can have it taken care of. And here’s who I’d recommend. And he did. And that that was probably what appropriate other than what we’ll discuss more down the road, what we discovered. But, for the short term, he basically said, yeah, you don’t have to get taken care of, but if you want to, here’s a surgeon you can see.

Amber 00:08:21  Right. So he did send you to a surgeon and then you went to see her. Now, I wasn’t with you for any of these initial appointments. I was with you later on. So, that’s why, you know, I only have your point of view to go on here. So you went to see her, and she also confirmed…she did another. She palpated your abdomen again. Right. So what? What was that like?

Mike 00:08:48  Different. Right. So whereas my doc sort of sort of padded and was like, yep, that’s what it is. She was like, first of all, which I thought was interesting. She said, thank you for coming to me. she said, I work on this frequently. I will tell you right now that I have had to essentially put people’s organs back in their bodies because their hernias have been very, very serious. I am glad, while you are younger and healthier, that you are addressing this, which I thought was sort of that got my attention. It wasn’t sort of, hey, business as usual. It was very much, I’m glad you’re coming to me about this at this point in time. It’s important we take care of it, and I’m glad. So there was a little bit of a different tone, right? That was the first thing which was different from my, my, my GP.

Mike 00:09:30  So which was fine. but it was…I paid attention from that point and then she, they have to put a finger sort of up and under, into your body. So she said, let me test and I and that was somewhere in the middle there. I sort of said, you know, I, I could have two. Sometimes I feel it on the other side. And that was new. I hadn’t I hadn’t, always felt that way. and she said, well, two things. One, she said, definitely you have a hernia. not a big one, I don’t think. But you have one. And she’s on the right side. And she said, if you haven’t one on the left side, we will take care of it. she gets you a good two for the price of one. and it’ll be taken care of. And then she explained that there’s a robot, which was always funny. The robot conversation is hilarious. because she’s like, it’s not an AI robot.

Mike 00:10:16  It’s a human assisted tool. And I was very excited to meet the robot. That was the highlight of this. So yeah, but the short of it was, and she explained the surgery itself, which was essentially there were three incisions. It involves inflating your abdomen. They put mesh in the mesh, sort of, I guess unfolds. I’m not sure how they get through the holes there in your body. I assume it sort of expands or unfolds and she’s like. And then you have that for life. and that will reinforce essentially your abdomen, because this kind of thing happens to people as they get older. she was like, it’s a very common surgery. but I recommend it at your own pace. And again, sort of that same not urgent, but good to do. and we made an agreement that basically we weren’t going to do it for months. We had vacation coming up in a lot of travel, so we just weren’t going to do it right away. and we and I couldn’t schedule it.

Mike 00:11:06  That was the other challenge. They couldn’t schedule it that far out. So I had a call and and try and schedule it later. But that’s where we left it, which was. Yep, definitely at least one, hernia, possibly more. Not very large. and we, you know, when you get the chance, schedule it and we will get it done. As always, I hesitate to call it outpatient, but the idea being you’re in one day, and, you will absolutely have to rest. You did make that point. for a week at least. And, for a month won’t be lifting anything. And then we would take it from there. So we didn’t get into too much more detail, because obviously as we got closer, we would have that discussion, but she definitely put me on the path to surgery for sure.

Amber 00:11:47  Right. And so then you did decide that you wanted to proceed. And then it was just a matter of trying to get it scheduled in between. I think it was the spring when you discovered it and that, you know, these appointments took place then and then, of course, during the summer, you know, we wanted to have a summer.

Amber 00:12:03  We had things planned. We had a…we had a big international trip planned and then also camping and things like that. So, we waited until the fall for you to be able to have this surgery. And I wasn’t in any of these initial appointments with you. However, working in the space as a medical writer and a volunteer, I’ve learned a little bit totally not in relation to your situation at all, but learned some things about hernias and hernia surgery and the robotic surgery. and it was interesting because it was explained to me by a surgeon, and I’ve seen pictures of the robots. I’ve never seen the real live robot. I’ve just seen the photos.

Mike 00:12:57  I have a story about that. I don’t think I told you, but we’ll tell you.

Amber 00:13:00  Oh, yeah. Awesome. Great. I love a reveal and laparoscopic, which is amazing. Which is…that’s the three small incisions versus the one big one. And that’s pretty much all I knew kind of about your specific case at that time.

Amber 00:13:21  And then we scheduled it. Now what was kind of bonkers to me was that as you said this, it literally is outpatient surgery. So you’re in that morning. They do the surgery. You go home that afternoon or that evening. So we understood that that’s what was going to happen. I had reservations, concerns. You had some as well. Tell me about what your biggest concern was in this whole process.

Mike 00:13:55  One word. Pain. Yeah. I can’t imagine I’m alone. I, you know, some feels like I was kind of whiny about it, but I. I feel like any person in this situation is concerned about pain. First and foremost, they they, they sort of get the other stuff. There was a lot I had a lot of conversations with, practitioners and assistants and other staff talking about all the other prep, but by far the thing I cared about most is the pain. And that was the least conversation we had. So that was really the big question. And and related to that was, okay, how much pain am I going to be in to be able to operate? Right? So in other words, and by the way, this is of course tied to your pain killing situations that pain management.

Mike 00:14:37  So how are we going to deal with the pain because that affects other things, for example, going to work. And it really couldn’t get a straight answer for a bit about how quickly I could go back to work. I had always assumed a week. And the you know, the good news was I work remotely. the bad news is, working remotely or any desk worker just basically sits crouched. so there’s certainly, you know, unless you’re laying flat or something, which you could potentially do or stand, it’s a lot during the day. So there was a tolerance limit for that. But what I essentially landed on was how much pain medication will I have duration wise. And that’s going to dictate how long I should be out. And that’s sort of what led the conversation, because I couldn’t get a straight answer and I needed to carve out the time appropriately. We settled on a week, the I think the surgery was a Monday or Tuesday, so we essentially settled on the rest of that week.

Mike 00:15:29  And that was through conversations with the practitioners that got complicated because implicit in that conversation was that’s how much medication I was going to get. And that’s not how it works, is how the surgeon at some point had to explain to me which was it was at her discretion. And that spiked my anxiety, partially because I was not clear on how she was going to make that judgment call. so that, in other words, the idea being we will not we’re not going to send you home without any pain medication, but we’re not going to send you home with a week’s, and we’re not going to tell you how much you’re going to get, because we’re going to make a judgment call at some point. Now, the question, of course, is when does that judgment call get made? Because of course, my situation is I, you know, and having been through surgery with you and, and, you know, been through a while ago, some other surgeries, it’s really interesting. Like, I’m not in pain while I’m at the surgery point.

Mike 00:16:24  Right. So in other words, there’s no clear like, oh, I’m in pain. You have to give me meds for the rest of the week. So I was a little bit like, who makes this call? The surgeon does, I guess, but. And based on what evidence? So I think what was implicit and not said was depending on how extensive the surgery was, that was going to change the meds that I would be getting. So in other words, it wasn’t really tied to my pain. I wouldn’t be expressing pain one way or the other. It was there was some variance in how much the surgery could be, which again, I didn’t really fully understand. So there was a lot of discussion to the point that I was anxious enough to say I wasn’t going to do it if I didn’t get assurances. And to my surgeon’s credit, she did call me and reassured me that she absolutely would. Basically, I have to trust her, but she wasn’t going to give me no medication and she would give me the appropriate amount, which of course I had no idea what it was.

Mike 00:17:18  So we had to take a leap of faith. But at this point I was a little bit like, if you’re willing to go under and have this person working with her pet robot to work on me, I got to trust her the rest of the way. So I made a decision and decided to do the surgery right.

Amber 00:17:31  And I also was concerned because there is now a trend towards sending people home and telling them that they should take alternate, acetaminophen and ibuprofen and that they’ll be fine with just that. My experience with colectomy and jpouch creation was that I needed at least two weeks worth of pain management after I got out of the hospital, and I was in the hospital for five days. And I don’t think either one of us has a low pain tolerance. I myself can’t do the ibuprofen anyway, so like that was what I was basing it on as well. And so I was also concerned that I was going to end up like making some phone calls and trying to get your pain medication filled or refilled.

Amber 00:18:31  Meanwhile, you’re already in pain and behind on the pain, because you have to stay ahead of it and then try to manage it all while trying to manage a household. Because, you know, you of course would are not available to do any of that, which is fine unless you’re trying to get something done really quickly like that. And, you know, having another adult around would be helpful. So yeah, so that was the biggest concern. I remember we went through several days where there were some back and forth with your surgeon’s office, and then she finally called you and like you said, you you agreed. And then we were able to set the surgery date. I don’t remember this actually, at all, which was bad, but there really wasn’t much of a preparation for the surgery. Right? It was kind of a a stop eating after midnight type of deal. 

Mike 00:19:27  Yeah, most of the concerns were just like, making sure you’re not taking any kind of, protein shake stopping meds.

Amber 00:19:34  Yeah, stopping stopping your…

Mike 00:19:35  Medication, stopping whatever your intake was. And then don’t eat, don’t turn, you know, don’t be a gremlin after midnight kind of thing, but but pretty much beyond and also like, you know, come in comfortably and be ready for surgery. and the surgery got moved, right. It was really going to be very early in the morning. And that was going to complicate things. and then it turned into afternoon. So it had shifted to the afternoon again, not a big deal. Then you start to get hungry because you’re not supposed to eat. So, you know, we’re always trying to do morning stuff. but it was fine. I mean, there was just at that point, I was not in the mood to do anything or eat anything. so it was it did shift a little, but mostly. Yeah. And this is my point. The amount of dialogue I had about prep far outweighed the amount of dialogue I had about pain. And pain is what I cared about most.

Mike 00:20:22  And a lot of times the prep was overlapping. So I had a conversation with several different people, or I had forums I had to fill out, and they were all sort of saying the same kind of story, Which, by the way, it seems like the surgery of this type has advanced quite a bit. So every once in a while there would be things that seemed outdated that were still in the paperwork that they gave you too. So that was the other thing too. We were like, well, which is it? You know what am I actually allowed to do? What what is what can I actually do? Near as I can tell, the state of hernia surgery is advanced pretty, pretty strongly, in the past five years. So a lot of this stuff isn’t true anymore. As much doesn’t apply as much in terms of what you’re allowed to do afterwards. And that was part of the problem. I couldn’t get straight answers out of folks because it seemed like they weren’t 100% sure, and presumably they no one’s sure except the surgeon.

Mike 00:21:08  And she’s only sure, as we discovered later when she’s actually when you’re actually on the table. So we just didn’t get sort of a lot of clarity on a lot of this stuff. But yeah, I mean, in terms of what you prepared for, you kind of just showed up to the hospital.

Amber 00:21:22  Right. So all right, we get everything’s all set. You have your pre-op appointments, you stopped your supplements, that you take, your vitamins and whatever. I don’t even know everything that you did. It’s probably for the best. so you stopped all of that as you were supposed to. We went in the day of the surgery. You get prepped, they take you away and tell me what that was like next. From your perspective, when they wheeled you into the O.R.. I do believe that they gave you. What did they get? They gave you something. Was it Valium or something before they wheeled you into the O.R.?

Mike 00:22:02  Yes. I don’t remember what it was. I remember the the…

Amber 00:22:06  The anesthesiologist.

Mike 00:22:07  Anesthesiologist visiting and talking about potions, which I…

Amber 00:22:11  I think I know I was a little bit like potions.

Mike 00:22:14  You’re making it sound like magic.

Amber 00:22:15  A little bit like I can. We use the real terms because we will understand things.

Mike 00:22:21  He was attentive. I actually, like everybody was actually lovely.

Amber 00:22:24  Yeah, but but I asked him to tell me specifically what medications he was giving you. And I got the impression that he does not normally get asked that question or give out that information. And I was like, no, no, I don’t I don’t want to talk about potions. I want to talk about exactly what you’re giving and when.

Mike 00:22:42  I mean this. So this is a point that I think it’s worth for listeners. To me, it was very interesting. It’s clear to me that hernia surgery tends to be an older person’s like, we are definitely older but much older. So there’s a lot of things that I think happen that just sort of click along and nobody says anything.

Mike 00:23:00  And it’s because there’s an assumption that these are older folks who are maybe not in a position to push back, not in a position to ask or not in a position to advocate for themselves. So yeah.

Amber 00:23:10  That’s that’s pretty bad then. I mean, I agree.

Mike 00:23:13  I don’t…I don’t think that’s great. But I mean, the pain conversations seem to catch people by surprise where I was like, I have enough agency that I will not show up to your surgery. because even though you’ve decided because you know everything, once they schedule, they just want to click it along. And the same thing. Right. That was the sort of an example. Asking questions seemed to surprise everybody, right. Because this was definitely a process. So but to your question, it was mostly the first thing is always like, how naked do you get and how much stuff do you take off? Right? I always that’s always a concern. you made that point. Gotta take your wedding ring off. I mean, like, literally like you’re like, what is it? Because they tell you to take everything off and you’re like, oh, there’s things I didn’t even realize there on my body that could swell up or whatever.

Mike 00:23:53  you want to make sure you you do. You know, I, like you said, I certainly they gave me something to calm me down, I guess. I don’t think I was expressing anxiety, but they’re like, it just makes it easier. And then there’s a gas when you get in there. But they were very, sort of, you know, moving along. We met different people who helped us, you know, talk about changing clothes and just preparing and putting your stuff away. So you, you put your clothes away again. You’re not going to have anything. Right. So you’re sort of just there and, which is interesting feeling in this day and age, right? No phone, no watch. You’re not even wearing jewelry. You’re not. You’re just. You’re just naked. The way you came into the world.

Amber 00:24:31  It’s just you and your hospital gown. Yeah. That’s it. Yep.

Mike 00:24:35  So, Which is fine. I’ve gotten better. I think it’s harder for men.

Mike 00:24:38  I think, as you’ve said before, you know, women have to deal with a lot of these things just because the nature of examinations and the and the medical, visits you have for men who either don’t go or don’t don’t go through this, it’s different, but I was I’m a little bit more socialized to it now. So it was okay. my the fun part was they brought me into the room and I saw the robot, and we had a whole hilariously awkward dialogue where they didn’t want to tell. I was like, does it have a name? And they were like, no, it doesn’t have a name. 

Mike 00:25:09  And they’re like, and they all looked at me and were like, no. I was like, why not? And you know, I’m high at this point, right? And they’re like looking at me and they’re like, do you want to name it? And I couldn’t come up with a name because I was slowly losing whatever grip I had on reality at that point.

Mike 00:25:26  But it was a pretty funny thing because they were like, that’s the robot, and the robot is this giant. Like, I didn’t even had to put it. It looks like an industrial.

Amber 00:25:34  Really, really big. Yeah.

Mike 00:25:35  It’s enormous. I mean, it was funny because I didn’t think of it, but yeah, it makes sense, right? It’s got to be over you. I mean, it’s almost like its own operating table with sort of its arms to do the work. And it looked like it had three. I don’t even remember. Now I’m sort of dimly remembering. I should probably look it up on the internet as to what it was, but I wanted to call it Bob or something. I don’t know. but they I feel like it has to be alliterative to like Harry the hernia.

Amber 00:25:57  I don’t know, you want to call it, like, slice stitch now, something.

Mike 00:26:02  Friendly and not terrifying, but, Yeah, like Harry the hernia bot or something. But anyway, he was it was, that was. And that was it. 

Mike 00:26:10  You know, I always it’s funny because every time I do this now, I say, do you want me to count down? And they laugh at me and they’re like, no. Why? And they’re like, you can if you want. And, you know, I remember trying. I do that And of course, then you have got the mask over your face and they can’t hear you anyway. I think that’s part of it. It’s different. So I try to count down and I never make it. So. Yeah. And then I was out.

Amber 00:26:31  Yeah. They did used to ask you. Yeah. That. It used to ask you to count down, my last pouchoscopy, the IV was not in properly. And so the anesthesiologist pushed the propofol, and I looked at him, and and he’s pushing it, and I said, all right, good night, Irene. And then nothing happened. I turned to him and, a few seconds later and I turned to him and I said, well, I’m still awake.

Amber 00:27:01  And he goes, I noticed. And they had to place a new, a new IV. So I mean, it’s yeah, the, the, the countdown thing, nobody asks you to do that anymore. But at the same time.

Mike 00:27:15  It serves a purpose.

Amber 00:27:16  It can serve a purpose.

Mike 00:27:20  You want to know you’re out, and you want them to know that you’re not out if you’re still okay.

Amber 00:27:25  Right? so that was just a funny thing that happened to me. But back to you. Okay, so you’re in the O.R. now. You don’t know anything. You’re having a long nap. I was in the waiting room, and then I went and got some great hospital cafeteria food, and I forget how long they told me it was going to be. But the timing was going on far beyond what they told me that it was going to be. And I also knew some other things in terms of that. You were her only case that afternoon, things like that.

Amber 00:28:03  So it was going on a little bit longer and I wasn’t worried or anything like that, but I was like, okay, something either didn’t start on time or, you know, something was different. So she came out to talk to me in the waiting room. And she told me that yes, you had the one hernia. And then she found another one on the other side, and that she repaired that one as well. So. And then a while after that, you know, obviously they brought me back to see you. So what do you remember of that, if anything?

Mike 00:28:37  Well, and it was, it was sort of what I suspected. Right. So you come out and you you have the ability to request drugs. I don’t know what it is that I was getting. Eventually the surgeon did come to speak to me. it was supposed to be three hours. So that’s what they had said originally. It was. It ended up being five hours, I think, or in change.

Mike 00:28:56  But it was more than three. It wasn’t three because we knew when we were. I actually had it all scheduled and knew when I was supposed to come out and it didn’t. That’s not how it went down. So that was the first thing was clearly this took longer. the second thing was we went from one normal air quotes hernia on the right side to two presumably large ones. And I think she made that statement. I’m not exactly sure where I remember that being said, but it was like two large ones, which again, the first thing you say is, geez, did I do that? but yeah. So two large, hernias. And obviously the surgery took longer because of that. And Harry, the hernia bot had some work to do. So that was taking longer. And then, they want you to be pain free. I asked for all the pain meds I could get the whole time. and they gave it to me, which I thought was interesting because there were people who I felt like were potentially not going to be given them.

Mike 00:29:46  and they just were like, you get whatever you want. So that was the first where I was like,

Amber 00:29:50  I feel because it was more extensive right than initially anticipated.

Mike 00:29:56  Right and then the, the rush to get you out begins, which, you know, I’m not unfamiliar with this, but it kind of aggravates me. And then it was like, okay, you need to pee, right? That’s the big thing is you need to pee. We want you to pee, because if you can pee, you can basically, that’s your that’s your exit plan. So they were pretty tolerant. I was there for a bit and there were people coming in and out, all in various states for their whatever surgeries. but they they were definitely getting ready for me to sort of go to the next stage, which was to get me to pee, because if I could pee…and by the way, you can’t feel anything, you know, so they’re a little bit like, well, you’re going to need to stand and you’re going to need to go pee, and we’re going to hopefully see if you can do that.

Mike 00:30:34  So they were sort of hoping I was able to do that. and then of course, then that then you’re sort of that is your launch to go home. So. Right. 

Amber 00:30:43  And they got you out of bed. 

Mike Right. 

Amber They got you out of bed. 

Mike Correct. 

Amber And. Yeah. Brought you to the bathroom.

Mike 00:30:48  But I was able to do that.

Amber 00:30:48  We’re up and walking. Right. You know, with within an hour after surgery.

Mike 00:30:53  And then and they were like, great. Okay. Now there was a conversation with the surgeon. And of course, as I’ve said before, and I said to her prior, you’re going to talk to me. I am not going to understand and remember everything that you said. And that’s that’s how it went down. I think you were there for that dialogue, I hope I don’t remember, were you there in the room? Nope. No. Okay. No. So this was…

Amber 00:31:12  She came out and talked to me. You and her and I were never in there, so.

Mike 00:31:16  We had to compare notes, which is not ideal. but she basically said something along the lines and again, I, you know, I don’t trust my memory. I was high out of my mind at that point, but it was a little bit of, you may get some shoulder pain from gas, right? It’s referred pain. I heard the words shoulder pain. Weird. I heard the word gas. Like, yeah, of course, because they said they had used gas to sort of inflate your abdomen to do the surgery. I really didn’t understand the implications of any of what was said, and that was all I got. I did get that there were two large hernias, so it was longer and sort of more of a surgery than was anticipated. Nowhere was it said so. By the way, the pain’s probably potentially more challenging because you had and I still don’t know if that’s the case, but, it was certainly like whatever we had gone in with, assumptions were not the assumptions we came out with.

Mike 00:32:05  And that mattered later. So yeah, it was news to me. and I don’t know how well I sort of understood what was happening, but I just knew they wanted me to pee.

Amber 00:32:16  Yeah. So you peed. Then somebody came and got me and brought me back to you. And I think about this a lot in regards to myself and others. And then in regards to you, as you know, we were going through this, we were going through this journey together. Everything was all set. The nurses were explaining things to me, giving me the paperwork. All is fine and good. Okay. Now he needs to get dressed now. And that was my job. Like, it was kind of funny because that was my job to help you get dressed while you were, you know, under all of this pain medication and anesthesia and you couldn’t really feel anything. And I was like, worried about you fall it like it was just kind of a wild thing that I was like, oh, wait, I have to do this, you know? but we got through it.

Amber 00:33:12  It’s. It’s a lot harder to put socks on an adult than it is to put them on a child. And shoes. I will say that like, obviously I have two children. I have put, you know, have babysat, you know, all of this. So I’ve put many a sock on a child. It is not the same when you’re trying to put socks and shoes and underwear on an adult. so that was kind of funny. so. All right, so we get you all set, bring the car around. All of that, get you home, get you into the recliner. Now, here’s the thing, too, I think, is that we had we have a recliner. 

Mike Yeah. 

Amber Which, you know, I don’t know what the percentage of, you know, people have recliner in their home. Like, I really don’t know, you know, that you would be able to manage it very well without having that. It was so much easier to just set you up in the recliner in the center of the house, so that we could make sure that you were taken care of versus putting you in the bedroom and then and laying flat or whatever, and then not knowing what was going on with you.

Amber 00:34:24  So, yeah, put you in the recliner and you fell asleep pretty much right away.

Mike 00:34:29  Yeah. And that that was interesting because we were prepared for me to stay in the bed. And almost immediately we ended up staying in recliner and sort of all the plans changed. But to your point, no discussion about any of that, which I always find interesting because again, that’s really important, how a person’s going to be sort of not flat, not crouched over, but in between. And the recliner is really the only way you get there. so it was ideal, for our purposes, which is funny because I think at various times we’ve wanted to get rid of that recliner, but.

Amber 00:35:01  Oh, I hate that recliner. Oh.

Mike 00:35:03  Not anymore. That’s my best friend. That thing’s going to. Be with me forever.

Amber 00:35:07  I know, I mean, it serves a purpose. It’s useful. I just don’t like it. Yeah, I know, I know.

Mike 00:35:13  Well, it is an old recliner.

Mike 00:35:16  Came to the rescue because we needed it.

Amber 00:35:19  Yeah. All right, so then began the great tracking of the pain medication because what they told us to do in the paperwork. Okay, so then what I do and I’ve done this for a long time, I know people have different ways of dealing with it, is that I literally just get out a notebook and start writing it down. So I’m writing down every time I gave you every pain med so that we could, I could then space it out for the day and make sure that every two hours you were getting something so that everything was overlapping. It was, you know, acetaminophen and then ibuprofen and then an opioid and then over again, as you know, and then and then it kind of went like that so that you weren’t having too much breakthrough pain, although in that first day you were fine anyway, because whatever they gave you for the surgery hadn’t worn off yet, right?

Mike 00:36:16  I did not understand that that was probably the biggest thing, was just how much of a reprieve that first day was.

Mike 00:36:22  Really the drugs from the surgery, or while I was down in the outpatient, versus the medication we were using. But yes. So because I so seem good first day, right?

Amber 00:36:33  Yeah. And I was just, you know, even though you were like, I’m fine, I was still giving you all of the medications because I knew just from experience that you like, you just have to do that. I also know from experience that it is that second to third day where things really start to get tricky. So we were giving you the pain medications. It’s a challenge overnight because you don’t want to be waking up necessarily, to have to take stuff if you don’t have to. And I think I made the mistake of letting you sleep and not waking you up to give you pain medication in the middle of the night. And then what happened is, is that you wound up waking me up. And tell me what you were feeling at that point.

Mike 00:37:23  I didn’t understand intellectually, like, sort of in the back of my mind, I sort of got to understanding that there was referred pain from gas.

Mike 00:37:31  The problem was, I, I spiked a fever. I know sometimes it seems like because, you know, I we checked we have one of these, you know, touchless thermometer things that gives very variable results. But I felt really hot. And the pain in my shoulder had gotten very, very strong. And then I started to have chills. And the problem was it was muscle pain, I thought, in my shoulder. So then the chills were setting off a chain reaction. So I’m my I feel like I have a fever, I’m shivering. And my what felt like a vice like grip from my sort of my heart, which would be my left. My left pec to the back shoulder was just convulsing in pain. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t find a way to move in a way that was going to help. And the medication we had, including the opioid, because we often say the opioid doesn’t really remove the pain. It sort of makes you not care about it, which is subtle, but important.

Mike 00:38:31  Wasn’t working. Nothing was working. and I knew I was trying to wait till the next whatever, how long I had, and I couldn’t anymore. So first of all, I was like, I’m very afraid I’m going to overdose. I’m going to take something I’m not supposed to take. I’m not in my right mind. Second, I am also afraid I’m either having a heart attack or a stroke for some reason, which didn’t make any sense, right? Because obviously it was tied to the surgery. But you’re not in your right mind anyway, right? So I was like, I don’t trust myself. And then third, I felt really bad because you were asleep. You were in a deep sleep and I had felt okay up to that point. So I was like, is it going to be, you know, it’s not gonna be fun, but it’s going to be relatively smooth. But that’s not what it was. It was very much sort of this absolute, sort of unstoppable over and over pain where I couldn’t function.

Mike 00:39:20  And I was like, I, I’m gonna, we’re gonna have to call the emergency room, like, I’m gonna have to get go away in an ambulance because I don’t understand what’s happening. and that’s basically when I woke you up, right?

Amber 00:39:29  And you were telling me I’m laughing. It was like, it’s funny, but it’s not funny because you were. You were pretty convinced that you had pneumonia, and I was reassuring you that you did not have pneumonia. We got behind on your pain, and it’s not great. And you’re having pain because all of the things that they gave you the day of surgery have now worn off. And then also the position that you’re in while they’re doing surgery and all of that. So it was basically like giving you the next round of pain meds and then just sitting there kind of and I was like, sit up, you know, and we’ll try to try to move this gas around. I mean, I know what that gas pain is like, having experienced it so many times.

Amber 00:40:18  And it can really it really just like feels like it gets under your ribs and you just can’t get it out of there, you know? 

Mike 00:40:25  Well, I didn’t feel like gas around. That was sort of. 

Amber 00:40:26  Yeah, it doesn’t feel like gas.

Mike 00:40:27  You know, if you haven’t had it before. You mean, again, intellectually, she had said you may have shoulder pain. I was like, that’s not that is underselling the pain. Number one. Number two, not what I would think of as gas pain. Right. So it was very, very different. And of course, this is not regular air quotes, regular gas that they’re pumping into you. Right. So it’s whatever they’re doing. It’s very much, like I didn’t even consider that until you just said it. Now who knows what position I was in? I don’t know, maybe I was upside down when they did the surgery. So I don’t know where the gas would have expressed itself or whatever and how it would have traveled.

Mike 00:41:00  Or, you know, again, the nerves are reacting in one spot and the gas pain is actually somewhere else and it’s totally referred pain. It doesn’t matter in the moment, you know, it’s just really painful. So and it was in the middle of night, it was like 2 or 3 in the morning and we just had to wait.

Amber 00:41:15  It’s always worse in the middle of the night. That’s the other thing. It’s always worse. 

Mike Yeah. 

Amber So we basically just, you know, continued with your pain, your pain medication regimen and sat up and watched, I don’t know, something on the TV until you felt sleepy again and were able to sort of fall asleep sort of halfway sitting up type of thing. So yeah. So that was a pretty bad that was a pretty bad night.

Mike 00:41:42  The other thing that was sort of in the moment was they were like, hey, did you know about this? And they bring out this little cup with a tube connected to it and they’re like, you’re going to have to breathe into it.

Mike 00:41:54  And I was like, what? And they explained without explaining as you explain later. they’re worried about lung function. That stuck with me. And that was where the pneumonia comment came from. Because what’s surprising and again, not news to you, certainly news to me when you’re under this deep. Well, there’s a lot of things that happen when you’re under this deep. First of all, you know, the concern is you’re so unconscious that your, your, your lungs are, you know, not functioning. And then, of course, now you’re out of the surgery and you’re, you’re taking these drugs, the opioids and the worry about your lungs. So I knew I had lost lung function. And that is disturbing, if you’re not used to that. So, you know, you try to breathe in this thing and you have to keep it at a certain level to to essentially exercise your lungs. And I was weak as a kitten and he couldn’t even do it. So that was surprising and was sort of last minute.

Amber 00:42:44  And I’m and then I’m coming in every whatever hour or whatever. And I’m like, did you breathe into your thing here? Breathe into the thing. Because I know how important that is. 

Mike Yeah, it’s really important. 

Amber It is. And it’s an easy thing to just be like, I don’t feel like doing that and not do it, but it is super important.

Mike 00:42:58  But it’s also a way to show how you’re not well. Like, you know, you can get over the pain and convince yourself you’re fine for a little bit.

Amber 00:43:05  But it’s an objective measure to show you you can’t. You’re not able to. You’re not able to suck in enough to move the little ball thing. 

Mike Right. 

Amber You know, so you’re not doing as well as you thought, you know.

Mike 00:43:16  And then the other thing that was never mentioned at all. And again, I just like this is the stuff I care about. Guys, I don’t know what you care about, but I care about being intubated and I care about being catheterized.

Mike 00:43:26  And I did not know either of those were going to happen. Both of those messed me up. So I when I woke up out of the surgery, I had like a glob of what I could only describe as phlegm, but like, almost like mucus. it hurt to pee. No one had mentioned any of that. So that was another thing. I was like, well, why? I didn’t even understand that I had been catheterized. And I realized it later. I was like, that’s the stuff we got to talk about, guys. Not the all this aftercare that just so I’m aware and prepped and not surprised as to what’s going on, because a lot of it was I was sort of almost like I was at a witness to my own crime scene, where I’m trying to piece it together as to what happened to me when I was under, I didn’t know any of that. So, yeah, I figured it out, though.

Amber 00:44:10  I think you said at some point you were like, my throat hurts.

Amber 00:44:12  And I was like, yeah, yeah, okay. That’s because they put a tube in your throat. 

Mike Yeah, yeah. 

Amber And you know, you had a catheter too, so. And yeah, those are the things that are a little surprising. And it’s funny to me too, because I didn’t even think about it, that I was like, yeah, of course you’re going to have that.

Mike 00:44:31  Well, and what’s ridiculous for me is I haven’t been under surgery. This is major surgery. Like I didn’t really understand it, but that’s major surgery. Major surgery is like you said, they like, worry about all the functions working in your body while you were unconscious. And you have to be. This is to make sure you are okay when you come out of it. So I have obviously not been through major surgery and this is what, you know, some of the pieces you can expect from that, any surgery of that level. so it was a surprise to me just being my first major one.

Amber 00:45:01  Right? Yeah. And it was also a surprise to me that they do the surgery and then let you go home that day. I’m guessing that’s because the majority of people do okay with this. But I always think to myself, if I didn’t have the level of knowledge that I have, just basically because of the work that I do and the experts that I have access to, I mean, I may have sent you in an ambulance that night, you know. but, you know, I knew you didn’t have pneumonia and you would be fine.

Mike 00:45:35  I forgot the pneumonia thing. Now I know why, though. It was because of the breathing, and I couldn’t breathe. And I was like, yeah, I can’t breathe. So, yeah, I guess I thought I had that, too. Yeah, I wasn’t rational.

Amber 00:45:45  They tell you that you have to prevent pneumonia, so you have to be walking around. Don’t just sit in the chair all day, etc.. You know, So you have that in the, in the, in the back of your mind.

Amber 00:45:55  You know, I really feel for anyone who is the caregiver during something like this. And, you know, we’re relatively young and healthy, but anyone who’s dealing with more than that and making sure that you are doing all of the things you need to do, keeping up on the pain, making sure that you’re breathing into the thing and going for a little walk. You know, all of that. Like it’s a lot. It’s a lot and not having enough knowledge. I almost feel like they can’t possibly tell you everything. Like it’s just impossible for them to be able to prepare you for everything that’s going to happen. They do the best that they can. I wonder how many people are calling the next day.

Mike 00:46:37  I disagree. I disagree. I feel like they do this constantly. They’ve written it’s clear there’s this giant body of old knowledge, because the hernia surgery has been done so often by so many people for so many years that it’s actually outdated. I actually reminds me a lot of stuff. 

Mike 00:46:51  With scouting. We have this challenge with scouting. Scouting is the Boy Scouts of America been around for so long, even if you put new information out, there’s older information out there, and you almost fight with yourself about the history of what you already have out there.

Amber 00:47:02  And because it just never goes away, it’s once you put it out there. Correct.

Mike 00:47:06  And then, you know, and then there’s a little bit of don’t consult Doctor Google, which my surgeon said, and so I didn’t and I regret that a little bit because, there was a lot of gaps in my knowledge that I think in if I were to go back, I would have absolutely educated myself more because they really didn’t cover this stuff. So I disagree. I think they absolutely everybody goes through this constantly. They churn these suckers out. It’s a common surgery. It’s it’s a serious surgery, but it’s not that uncommon. I think they can absolutely codify it better. But you know, shame on me too, right? I’m an adult.

Mike 00:47:39  I could have done more research, I didn’t, so, I learned the hard way.

Amber 00:47:45  All right, so you did take that week off from work. You needed it. But let’s go through how you sort of progressed. I want to think of it as sort of a week by week, because I think it also surprised you as to how long it took for you to get back to where you could go through your workday. And again, with the caveat that you have a desk job, and your desk job is literally located inside your own house. So you weren’t having there was no commute or anything like that. So you took that first week off, and then you went back to work the next week. And then what was that week like, and how did you have to take care of yourself?

Mike 00:48:32  Yeah, the biggest thing wasn’t pain, right. So then after you sort of get through that really bad night, the pain wasn’t nearly as much of an issue. Not that there wasn’t pain.

Mike 00:48:42  and not that I couldn’t manage it. And as you mentioned, a lot of it sleeping. Right. Just sort of trying to make sure you’re taking enough medication before you go to sleep so you can manage that. And I tried to get off the opioids pretty quickly. I think we we were done very relatively. We didn’t use the, you know, the full course right away. It wasn’t like I was like I needed every day and I didn’t want to because part of the problem was, of course, you can’t focus and try and do the rest of your life. The bigger problem was, my stamina was was done. I was much I got tired just working. And, you know, again, desk job is not huge, but I really couldn’t go more than a couple hours before I. I basically needed to lay down with a heating pad. And that was surprising because I was physically okay. Otherwise, I felt for the most part, but I really just didn’t have the stamina. So and that sort of went on for weeks.

Mike 00:49:35  it wasn’t sort of a, oh, you know, you’ll be over it. So even when the pain was less, the stamina still wasn’t there. The other thing that happened was I wanted to get back to sort of my physical routine. I could not lift weights for a month, which was made sense. But even that was exhausting. so I was certainly losing a lot of sort of progress around my physical routine. I kind of felt that a little bit, but didn’t really know it until I got back to it. and that was again, sort of quite a shock. if you’re not doing it for weeks at a time, but for that first week, it was just really losing my stamina. That was the hardest. you know, I tried to let everybody know, like, like, guys don’t expect a lot from me, and everybody was fine with that. But it was one of those things where I, as I mentioned, I was in scouts, so like, there was no way I was doing anything in the evenings.

Mike 00:50:26  There just wasn’t. It just wasn’t happening at the end. So, as I said, what’s fascinating when you hit your limits is you it’s not like, oh, maybe I can push through. There was no pushing through. You’re just done. You’re done. The end. So, Yeah, my body told me that I was done. pretty much, you know, frankly, probably making it to sometime in the afternoon. And that was it for work. That was it for volunteerism, that was it for anything else that I would normally do. So a lot of things got rescheduled without me realizing I was going to have to do that. So I was I was overly optimistic.

Amber 00:50:56  Right. And your healing progressed, as it tends to do, thankfully. But you were finding that you had to change your diet and that things that you were eating, you were reacting to them in a different way. So what was that like?

Mike 00:51:14  Yeah. So this is again, no one mentioned this at all, but it makes sense.

Mike 00:51:17  You’ve had surgery. It affects your your abdominal wall. A lot of the concern was outwards in right. Like not going to wear belts. Worried about any kind of pressure on my stomach. So you know don’t want to be doing sit ups for example that stuff. But the reality also is there’s an inside out, right? Which is I am lactose intolerant, so I have to be sensitive to what I eat. And, I had some pizza and that was a very, very painful experience and it was because there was bloating, pushing against the same muscles that were sore from the surgery. So now you’re sort of coming at it the other side. And that was interesting because I started to lose weight because I was not interested in eating foods that I normally enjoyed, which continues even to this day, if I overeat. So that’s not even bloating. It’s bloating, but it’s not due to to gas or, you know, lactose intolerance. Just eating too much. It hurts. so boy, that was a shock.

Mike 00:52:13  And again, no one had ever even a whiff of, you know, you got to be careful what you eat. Hey, do you have lactose intolerance or anything that would cause bloating? Be don’t overeat or eat too much, or frankly, even eat too fast. Which is a problem because I eat tremendously fast. And, I was it was a surprise. So that was the other thing was I started to slow down what I ate and be very choosy about what I ate, which I wasn’t before because it caused bloating, which caused pain.

Amber 00:52:39  Right. So we changed our mealtime routines somewhat once we understood that that was the case. And I think you were using the heating pad on and off in the afternoon and then at night to sleep. I the that probably went on for almost two months. I think.

Mike 00:53:00  Yes. And true love is that you, my dear, gave me your best heating pad. The biggest and largest. Yeah.

Amber 00:53:09  And that speaks to the experience of someone who lives with a chronic illness.

Amber 00:53:13  Is that I have several heating pads, and one of them is my bestie.

Mike 00:53:18  And you gave that to me. So you must love me, because that was good. I swear by that heating pad. And then there was a running joke, because at one point we looked at the bed and there was heating pads on either side and you’re like, look at his and hers.

Amber 00:53:31  Heating pad, his and hers heating pads. Yeah, that’s pretty.

Mike 00:53:34  Funny. but totally. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, the heating pad, the heating pad, helped tremendously. partially because it just sort of calmed down any kind of muscle pain. And a lot of it was like it was it’s kind of a weird thing. I was sometimes just happier to stand or lay flat because it was just not having my stomach sort of crunched up, which you don’t realize how much you do unless you’re at a desk job and you’re constantly doing that. so the recliner came into play because you could sort of not do either of those, which is tiring or impractical, but sort of still have that and have this heating pad on you.

Mike 00:54:07  So that worked nicely with the recliner plus heating pad, was good. I also did get used to sleeping with a heating pad at night. That’s harder for me because then I get overheated and I don’t know, it was just challenging, but, I needed it sometimes just to go to sleep. So the heating pad was was absolutely invaluable. I knew it would be. I mean, that wasn’t that was one of the few things that wasn’t a surprise. but it was definitely a life adjustment to having our body the heating pad.

Amber 00:54:37  All right, Mike, you are now, I think eight weeks after your surgery. How are you doing today?

Mike 00:54:44  Good. I’m not perfect. I’m still not. So. I’ve heard up to six months, where you just don’t feel anything. I don’t necessarily feel pain. I feel, tension around the the muscles and always in weird spots, like, it’s never like where you think it would be. And it’s sort of different places depending on on where things are going for a little while, so I, I, I both kick box which not with a person with a bag and I, lift weights.

Mike 00:55:13  I lost a significant amount of strength, from that week where I wasn’t able to lift, which is fascinating to me. So I’m sort of building that stamina back up. but I use a weight belt. and I didn’t before. That helps a lot. so that that sort of just just to give sort of stability and feel like you’re not going to strain yourself much. but, I still have definitely some effects that I feel in my stomach. you know, we. Oh, the other thing was we actually got to talk to the surgeon, so I normally the way the recommendation goes is after the week after the surgery, you are, you have to see the surgeon so you can be cleared to go back to work. And again, this is old information that’s not accurate anymore, obviously, because it took a month before I was able to see my surgeon, so I had to go back to work without her advice. which was fine. Again, not high stakes because it was remote work. if this had been a situation where I had to commute, I think this would have been a very different conversation with both the surgeon and the hospital and a bunch of other stuff.

Mike 00:56:14  but we were able to confirm a few things. one was, at least according to her, I didn’t do this to myself, which is a little bit of a comfort. Right? The concern was I had, strained myself in a way that I had made things worse. The other thing that came out, which she said, which I think was really important, was I thought things had gotten worse in between the diagnosis and the surgery. Right. And I had noticed when we were at on in our global trip that I started to feel on the left side. There was a hernia potentially as well, but she said no. She said, just when I examine you physically, I seem perfect. And so it wasn’t a great way to do it. And that’s how that’s the only real one to know was when we’re we’re in there doing the actual surgery. So she sort of made me feel a little better because I was like, what did I do and should I? And of course, the point was, and if that’s the case, should I not do that in the future? Right.

Mike 00:57:06  That was my concern, is what shouldn’t I do? what’s interesting is there’s a lot of, like, you can do whatever you want. Go back to weightlifting, go back to kickboxing, go back to whatever you’re exercising. You know, walking. We always have done. And they were like, sure, that’s fine. but there really wasn’t any sense that that was the issue. the other thing that’s always fun when you tell people about this. And of course, you know, I got a big mouth. So I tell people about all my personal issues. is how many people will tell you about failed or problematic hernia surgeries, and how these meshes are real problem. again, my understanding is that’s old mesh. this is sort of bio friendly mesh. and I have two, right? Because I have the two major hernia points. So, it is interesting because, just because the, the state of the hernia surgery has advanced, it’s so challenging to navigate and have a conversation that doesn’t make you go, oh my God, you know, I’m going to have this problem again.

Mike 00:58:00  But the feeling I think generally is, people will have this. Right. So I’m a little bit of a cyborg. I actually like to think that my core is better because of this. So in some ways, as I build muscle, I’ll actually be stronger for it. and I hope it will improve my life. I think it was worth it. I think we I stand by our timing. We did it in September, which was good. If we had done it any later, that would have been terrible. If we had done it any earlier, that would have been a tough summer. so I’m glad knowing how long it’s taken me to get to this point. I’m glad that we we picked when we did. But yeah, I’m sort of done with the heating pad. Good old heating pad. He’s back to you now, so rehome him. and, you know, don’t I won’t say that. Probably in the mornings, I still will take some kind of over-the-counter meds, depending on how I’m feeling.

Mike 00:58:49  A lot of times that’s just headaches from all the other stuff going on in my life. So I would sometimes take it at lunch as well. But I’ve really sort of gotten away from taking it otherwise. And, you know, that’s good for all the travails of this, I thought it was definitely worth doing. I think I understand what it is involved. I think, unfortunately, the perspective of the patient just gets sort of overrun by this machine of hernia surgeries that’s being done. So, but, yeah, I feel like, you know, I’m. I’m way better than I was, but I, I believe it. I think it will take six months before I feel I don’t remember I had heard surgery.

Amber 00:59:28  Right. That sounds right to me. also based on my experience, which was very different type of surgery, and I had open surgery. But in the first days after surgery, I thought to myself, how am I ever, ever, ever going to do a sit up again and not feel like my guts are falling out? So it is really, wild and you start to feel better very slowly.

Amber 00:59:50  And of course, you just get, you know, you get back to everything that you were doing before, and it’s all it’s all fine. You just have to give it. You have to give it time. So we didn’t have an outline for this episode. I didn’t give you any questions beforehand. We literally we knew we were going to do it, but that was about as far of the discussion as we got. Do you want to talk about sex? Oh, baby.

Mike 01:00:15  I love to talk about sex. What do you want to talk about?

Amber 01:00:19  I’m trying to remember. What we talked to the surgeon about, what the questions were about when you could go back to having sex. And I think the answer was whenever you feel like it. Which was also, like kind of not an answer. Yeah.

Mike 01:00:32  It’s sort of and again, this is one of those things where and I don’t want to make anyone feel bad, but I felt like it’s, you know, we’re a couple doing pretty good, right.

Mike 01:00:40  Physically. we are as I mentioned, we’ve been married for a while, so, I don’t know what people circumstances are when they come in. But again, I feel like if people are older, sex is not the top of their of their mind, essentially. I just don’t feel like it comes up very much. So. There was a little bit of like, might be. Yeah, I don’t know. But I mean, the vibe I got from them, from the surgeon and everybody was like, okay. Oh, sure. so they just didn’t seem like people ask. Now, maybe they don’t ask. They’re reticent, I don’t know, but, people are.

Amber 01:01:11  Reticent, and then they go to the Google machine or they go on the book face and ask other people about when they can have sex. Yeah. So it is always a thing for, for me that I always like to point out that surgeons really need to be having that conversation.

Mike 01:01:24  With absolutely.

Amber 01:01:25  Their patients.

Mike 01:01:26  Absolutely.

Mike 01:01:26  Yeah. So, but yeah, I mean, and it’s so funny because there was also that, like, you’re not going to feel like it, buddy. Like you’re like, chill out. You’re like, I’m worried about. And they’re like, it’s fine because you’re not going to feel like it. and I was like, okay, you know, that’s a fair conversation. But they it took a while to get to that answer to, like, they’re like, oh, whenever you like you said, the answer is whatever. And again, to me, that’s not great. Now, I mean, to be fair, there’s positions that make a difference. There is how vigorous you are during sex. There’s lots of things that matter. I’ll tell you. I mean, I don’t have to tell you, you know, that sort of a few times I was like, okay, well, we paid in paying later, for some fun now. And that was just tied to the nature of the hernia surgery.

Mike 01:02:12  It never really felt like it was stopping me. but it was certainly like, yeah, you were like, I’m going to feel this later. and that’s the way it goes, you know? And I don’t think that was necessarily wrong, in what they said. But there was just, like, no advice. It was really like, I don’t know, that’s your problem, but good luck, right?

Amber 01:02:30  Right. Well, for instance, after having baby, I had a nurse. After I had my first. And she was very clear in what she said, and she said she had honed this speech over the years. And basically what she said was, don’t put anything in your vagina for four weeks, meaning, you know, no penetrative sex, no tampons, no, no nothing, she said. Because if you say, don’t use the tampon, people think that they can still have penetrative sex. So she just came up with that and she she felt like it covered all of the bases.

Amber 01:03:03  And I was like, yeah, well that’s okay. That’s pretty clear. You know, like, yeah.

Mike 01:03:07  And and that’s what I understand. I mean, I have this conversation over and over. I was like, and we, we actually we had a couples massage and we talk about massages. And I was like, I’m gonna treat you like my doc. Be very clear on when I can take underwear off. I want to be super, super clear on how naked I get. because that is important for you. And it’s important for me to know. And it’s funny because sometimes people are even doctors are very like my doc now just knows, right? But it’s very like we dance around it or we don’t want to say it up front. And I’m like, no, I want to be very clear for me and for you as to what I need to do, because it’s very important to me that I know when to do that. And I feel like this was the same. And again, we got a lot of that right.

Mike 01:03:46  When can I work out? Well, you know, it was sort of on the same spectrum. It’s just a different workout, I suppose, and we didn’t get a very clear answer. It was whatever you feel like. Now, what’s interesting that I read a lot and, you know, again, the Google machine is not necessarily be trusted in any way, shape or form as people were like, you’re actually not going to hurt the mesh, right? So that was one of the other questions was, what is the real concern? And the real concern isn’t the mesh. They were like, the mesh is good. Your pain level might not be good, the mesh is not the problem, but it was never put to me that way. It was a very vague, creeping like sense of doom on everything and you just didn’t know what your limits were.

Amber 01:04:24  So traumatic. You’re so dramatic. It’s hilarious.

Mike 01:04:28  It makes for good podcasting. but yeah, that’s me. You know, where I was like, I need to be really clear on what things are.

Mike 01:04:35  And then if you don’t answer me, I get really anxious. Like, why are you? Then? I’m like, well, you wanted.

Amber 01:04:40  Like, time frames, like, you know, and when I had my surgeries, I was given time frames. Don’t do this for this amount of time. Don’t do this for that amount of time. I did have to ask, when can I have sex again? You know, I did have to specify because it wasn’t brought up. Yeah. You know, and that started me on the journey of, of, you know, recognizing that difficulty in patient physician conversations and relationships. Totally. So then it’s always a question that I ask and that I tell other people to ask about because, you know, they’ll tell you, don’t vacuum, you know. Yeah, like, don’t vacuum for whatever you’re like, I don’t.

Mike 01:05:18  Give a crap about vacuuming, dude.

Amber 01:05:20  I don’t care about vacuuming.

Mike 01:05:22  Like, Let’s be clear what I really care about. But I mean, this is my point, right? There was just such a fascinating sort of gap between what I cared about and what sort of the.

Mike 01:05:31  And I wouldn’t even say my surgeon, because I thought she was lovely. It was more the hospital cared about. Right? Just the apple.

Amber 01:05:35  Everybody was amazing from, from start to finish.

Mike 01:05:38  They really were very nice. It’s just they I was like, I just need you guys to care about what I care about.

Amber 01:05:44  Well, the well understand what you care about, you know, and what you cared about, frankly, was getting back to lifting weights and having sex. That’s what you care about.

Mike 01:05:56  Exactly. Right.

Amber 01:05:56  You know.

Amber 01:05:57  So I don’t know what that.

Mike 01:05:58  Says about me. I sound like a I sound like a teenager. I’m not really sure. But yes, that is exactly because you’re right. That was basically and it’s funny because I feel like I brought that question up probably three times, at least twice in your presence and probably separately multiple times after that. And I couldn’t get like a straight answer.

Amber 01:06:15  Right. Well, I mean, we figured it out. It was funny because you had gone Into the gym that’s in our house.

Amber 01:06:23  And I was like, what are you doing? Like the next week you were down there punching stuff and I was like, well, I guess we’ll see how it goes, you know? And it went okay. You didn’t have too much pain afterwards, although I think that you did modify things as you went along because you had days when you realized that you overdid it and that you had to scale back. And I also think we were back to having sex within like a week, I feel like. And it was kind of like, hey, let’s try it and see. And and it was like, okay, well, you might need some more acetaminophen or something like that after, you know, afterward. But it was surprisingly it really. And this might go back to their point of do it when you feel that you can is because we were actually surprised at how quickly you could get back to certain activities. And you may have been a little sore, but generally you were.

Mike 01:07:21  Yeah. And this was the whole I mean, it sort of pivoted on the opioid discussion, which was really what sort of got my back up.

Mike 01:07:28  Right, which was I want the choice with pain meds so I can choose not to take them, because I know myself and I know that I’m going to go at the pace that I feel comfortable. And certainly part of that. The guy who wants to do weightlifting and have sex is not the guy who wants to be on opioids all week, and their response is like, no, we’ll let you know how much you’re allowed to have. And so it’s sort of that is where this collides these two philosophies, which is really where it started to aggravate me because it was a little bit like, hold up, you’re going to do the surgery. The rest of it’s going to be me, because you’ve given up in some ways any right to care since you’re not keeping me in the hospital. And as you said, I feel like maybe we should have done that at least one day.

Amber 01:08:06  The drama. Yes. So.

Amber 01:08:12  Oh.

Amber 01:08:13  So funny.

Amber 01:08:15  it’s just so different.

Amber 01:08:16  Going through this with you having gone through all of the experiences that I’ve had in my life because I take, I guess, certain things as they come for granted, whatever.

Amber 01:08:27  And you resist.

Mike 01:08:30  Oh, I want to fight all the way through the whole process. And and I think I have a very strong sense of an expectation. And again, I, you know, like I’ve been around I’ve been in the business world for over two decades. So there’s to me, there’s certain things I expect because I know, you know, the stakes are pretty high. It involves my personal health. So I’m used to asking questions and having people engage in good faith. And there was a lot of like it wasn’t bad faith, but there was just a lot of like, why are you even asking this question thing? And you’re like, why am I even having to ask the question?

Amber 01:09:05  well, because you haven’t done this before. Yeah. So it’s like, I’m going to ask all of the questions because I’ve never been through this before. And that’s.

Mike 01:09:11  My point. You know, I.

Amber 01:09:11  Can’t be I haven’t either. Well, and I haven’t been through it in this way.

Amber 01:09:16  Obviously I know plenty of people who’ve had hernia surgeries and have interviewed plenty of people, but I’ve not been the caregiver. Right. So and I knew how much pain that certain people were in after they and was described to me when I was interviewing them. So that did concern me. But overall, except for that second, that second night into the third day, things were pretty manageable. I think overall, I think so. Okay. All right. Let’s try to end this with some tips. Again, did not script this at all or come up with anything. So let’s see if we could come up between the two of us with five tips for how to prepare and deal with having hernia surgery.

Mike 01:10:01  Okay. So yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is, you need a caregiver who is going to be able to take the time to monitor you. I mean, I to your point, I worry about people by themselves. I mean, I know there are people who do this, I guess, and I worry about people with their jobs.

Mike 01:10:17  Right. Like, depending on the job that you have, you have to be very clear about what you physically are going to be doing and then who’s going to be around to take care of you, in those probably critical to three days. So having a plan, I think is huge with a person that you trust who can who can do that. And we’re not talking just drive you home. Right. Which is what they that’s what they do. Like, you get somebody to drive you home. Yes. And, you know, I get an Uber and go home. That’s not it. So I think having somebody you trust for sure is the first one. The second one was the recliner. The recliner is really important, which is you, you know, the nature of the surgery was your stomach, your abdomen. you cannot sometimes laying flat is good. Sometimes standing is good, sometimes sort of. But but sort of crouching is never great. And of course, depending on the nature of just eating or whatever you’re doing, that’s the thing.

Amber 01:11:12  So I think, or maybe if you don’t have a recliner, an adjustable bed, if you don’t have an adjustable bed, maybe a, pillows that are made for that purpose of propping up sort of, your, your, your head and your chest and then also keeping your legs elevated.

Mike 01:11:31  Absolutely. And we did that at one point. The recliner actually the worst night I actually had like some bizarro pillow contraption just to keep my feet up. And I don’t even understand what I did by the end of it, but it worked. so for sure, making sure you have some means of elevating as you need adjustable, right? I think that makes sense. you mentioned it having a heating pad, and understanding where that’s going to be. and it’s again, you know, the heating pad that you have that’s amazing is big. and that was good because sometimes the pain was behind in my back again, not because it’s referred pain, but having that or, you know, maybe I’m just crouching and different muscles or sort of trying to make up for the pain in my stomach.

Mike 01:12:10  so the heating pad made a big, big difference. And again, like, I don’t think they ever mentioned that you should have one. But man, I couldn’t imagine life without it. I mean, I know you’re used to talking to preaching to the choir. Like, yeah, really? Yeah. The one that you took for me.

Amber 01:12:25  That’s why I have so many heating pads and they all have a different purpose. All right. That was three. Yes. What would be number four?

Mike 01:12:33  well, the big thing that came up with number four was eating, be sensitive to the fact that if you have any kind of bloating or you’re a fast eater or you tend to overeat, so you’re going to have to watch what you eat. and that was surprising to me because totally out of left field never considered it, but it was enough to make me lose my appetite. which is sad when I can’t look at pizza and enjoy it. or ice cream? both of which I enjoy very much so I can now, although I take Lactaid and a bunch of others too, just to try and make sure, you know, to minimize the bloating.

Mike 01:13:07  But, prepare for that. That’s a thing. You know, you may need to change your diet.

Amber 01:13:11  Which right and and not consume gassy foods spicy foods. You may need to just, be cool for a little bit on what you’re eating.

Mike 01:13:22  Absolutely. and then so for the fifth one, I think it’s probably, you know, really have a plan around your, your sort of, physical activity. I mean, one of the things they push for a lot is obviously breathing and breathing. So the lung capacity thing is tied to exercise, too, which is sort of interesting. Right? So once I was able to exercise, the lung capacity issue was much less of a problem. But it was freaking me out. where the first week I really just didn’t move. And, I was I just couldn’t breathe, right? I just couldn’t do it. So that was tremendous. And of course, they wanted you to walk. so the physical routine of walking, which we do anyway, which was great.

Mike 01:13:57  So it was it was relatively it wasn’t like a weird thing. And we had to find a new route. We were ready to do that from day one just because we exercise, which together actually we take walks, which I thought was fantastic, and made it easier. But there’s people, I’m sure, who probably don’t walk at all and have these surgeries and they’re like, what do you mean? I got to get up and walk? And then they were really struggling.

Amber 01:14:17  Well, that’s a good point, though, is that if you are planning a surgery like this, that maybe consider increasing your physical activity for a while. They call that pre having, you know, if if no one is going to, if you’re not going to get a plan and you’re not going to see a health care provider, that’s going to specifically put you through some sort of a rehab regimen, maybe doing it yourself and increasing your activity so that you can get back to walking right away. Absolutely.

Mike 01:14:47  And then, of course, as you said, I had done other exercises and I had to adjust them.

Mike 01:14:51  So kickboxing was no kicking, just the boxing. my weightlifting was not on the table for a little bit, but I would also do, as you mentioned, sit ups. No sit ups. I have a weighted hammer I use. Couldn’t use some of that and some of the lifting. So you know certainly adjusted my routine, but, what I was able to do certainly I think helped a lot. It was good for my mental situation because I was getting really frustrated sitting around. but it was also good sort of for, I think, the muscles in general. And then, you know, I had gotten that weight belt, which I swear by, I wasn’t sure if I was going to use it, and I use it even now, I still use it. so it was really modifying, you know, great. If you if you haven’t done the exercising, for sure. Having a plan. But they didn’t even afterwards sort of having a stage plan to sort of recover because you, you will you’re going to be under it.

Mike 01:15:41  This is major surgery and you’re not going to be able to do as much as you did, and you’re going to have to get back to it. I take that as a challenge. I’m sort of making that my New Year’s resolution to sort of try and get some of that stamina and muscle back, but it’ll come. It’s a shift if you think you’re just going to go right back to whatever you were doing, you won’t. And you need to be patient with yourself. and the circumstances. But again, if you can adjust your routine and frankly, plan your routine. I think it’s really helpful. Otherwise it’s very frustrating for for to b go from one thing, you’re going to surgery and then a month later you’re like, I can’t live what I was doing or do what I was doing before because I get tired or I’ve lost, the ability to to, you know, carry and lift the same amount of weight. So, yeah, for sure. Prepping that way, setting your expectations and having a stage plan, I think is valuable.

Amber 01:16:33  Right? Yeah. It is very difficult to go into surgery feeling well and come out of it feeling worse than you did when you went in. and it is, challenging because you just want to get right back to everything. So, but you have to make a plan and stick to the plan, and it should work out in the end.

Mike 01:16:57  How was that five. We just made those up. That was good. That was fine work okay.

Amber 01:17:00  We made it to five. Yeah, I think so. I think we did it. Anything else you want to ask?

Mike 01:17:06  I want to take this. Nobody can see this if you’re just listening. But you if you’re.

Amber 01:17:09  Listening to the audio.

Mike 01:17:10  Version. Just for me. So this. What is this called? This.

Amber 01:17:14  It’s cross stitch. So for those that are not seeing a video, Mike is holding up a cross stitch that I made him some years ago and it reads what does not kill me gives me XP, and XP refers to experience.

Amber 01:17:33  And that’s in terms of, as Mike mentioned, he’s a gamer. really Dungeons and Dragons as I think, where where most people’s might be familiar with with XP.

Mike 01:17:45  So I think it applies.

Amber 01:17:47  That’s it does it does apply.

Mike 01:17:51  To most dramatic fashion possible from my side. But yes, I.

Mike 01:17:53  Think for the most part.

Amber 01:17:54  Well, I always say I, you know, I don’t want people to experience too much adversity. You know, I’d prefer a little bit of adversity is helpful and helps you, you know, build character and help you understand who you are and what you want out of your life. You don’t want to have too much adversity and have it hold you back from the things that you want to do, but for sure, it didn’t kill you. You now have some XP. You are able to come on my show again and give this experience that anyone else that is going to undergo or is thinking about undergoing, or is maybe putting it off a little bit because you don’t want to have another surgery, and that I totally understand.

Amber 01:18:36  But having robotic hernia surgery, in your case, you came out with it was good that it was done when it was because there were two large hernias that we weren’t really aware of the size of them until your surgeon got in there, and then you were able to come through it and are doing well just even two months afterwards.

Mike 01:18:58  That’s right. Yeah. So I got experience and I get to share the experience with all of you. So that hopefully makes it worth it for everybody. I but I’m, I feel like it was worth it. To your point, it was definitely more serious. I don’t want to make it sound more dire, but it was more serious than we expected. And that’s going to pay dividends down the road. So I’m glad we did it now. Right.

Amber 01:19:17  Thanks for getting in front of the microphone once again to help me out and put out another episode of this show with your voice. So thanks.

Mike 01:19:28  Thanks for having me. Hopefully. So this is fourth time. Fifth time’s a charm.

Mike 01:19:32  Maybe I’ll come back again for something else.

Amber 01:19:34  I mean, I’d prefer that you not have another procedure that we can.

Amber 01:19:40  Go.

Amber 01:19:40  Through. I mean, who knows? There. There’s far more things also that we could discuss that go just because of the nature of the the being a, well, spouse and the spouse with chronic illness, I think we could probably do a limited series. Maybe we should think about that, I don’t know, I.

Mike 01:20:04  See the thoughts we’ve got other podcasts are still trying to figure out, but sure.

Amber 01:20:09  I know because. But there’s so much to go through and to help people understand about how to navigate these things. Not that we’ve done it perfectly, but I think coming up on our 25th wedding anniversary, we we could probably say that we could. We are qualified to give a certain amount of advice in any case. Okay. All right. Well, thanks so much. And, we’ll close it out here.

Mike 01:20:39  Thanks, everybody.

[Music: IBD Dance Party]

Amber: Hey super listener!

Thanks to Mike for recording with me and being so honest about his surgery and the recovery process. We hope it takes away any mystery about having this type of surgery and gives an idea of how to prepare and what the recovery process might be like.

As always, links to a written transcript, everyone’s social media handles, and more information on the topics we discussed is in the show notes and on my Episode 166 page on AboutIBD.com.

Thanks for listening, and remember, until next time, I want you to know more about IBD.

About IBD is a production of Mal and Tal Enterprises.

It is written, produced, and directed by me, Amber Tresca.

Mix and sound design is by Mac Cooney.

Theme music is from Cooney Studio. 

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