So just to get this out of the way, the surgery itself is no big deal, I’m just going in to have 2 hernias repaired, sewed up and meshes installed to protect the stomach and intestines. The first location on my abdominal wall is basically like swiss cheese according to my Doctor, with a bunch of holes where things are pushing through. This is the result of my gallbladder surgery I had in my 40s and the resulting scar tissue that has torn or weakened due to the massive weight of my belly I had for so long, plus the stress of working my abs out over the years and the final nail in the coffin was due to the rotation and stress I put on the abdomen wall from playing… disc golf. jeesh.. The 2nd one is near my groin and is either my intestine pushing through or it’s a weakened muscle that is pushing through. I’m lucky that neither of these hernias are painful. The past few months I was living with them by “pushing my guts” back in when they would push out. Yah…not a good way to live plus at some point they can get “stuck” out which means emergency surgery and I didn’t want that. lol..
The cool thing about this surgery is I selected a young Doctor that uses robotic technology to perform the surgery. This is the latest tech so I figured why not, he said if all goes well I’ll be able to go home the same day. 🙂
You can stop reading if you don’t care to dive into the deep anxieties of my mind.
Now comes to the mental aspect, yah…. I’m basically terrified of the surgery. yah.. I know I shouldn’t be and at 61 I’m lucky to be in the best shape of my life. I’m basically at the same weight now I was in my 20s! But the past year has been very hard on me mentally. I can safely say it’s been the most stressful mental wise, year of my life. My Father was diagnosed with dementia in late 2022 and it progressed pretty rapidly. Long story short he started forgetting to eat, drink, etc.
In November of last year I realized my Father wasn’t drinking enough and I tried to get him to drink more, he started saying he didn’t feel good, was tired, etc. I had a feeling he was getting dehydrated pretty bad. We pushed fluids but he just didn’t want to drink them. One day he wasn’t feeling good, I took his blood pressure and pulse with his arm band it said his pulse was 150+. I thought this couldn’t be right, I took it with the wrist machine and it was much lower so I thought he was ok. I asked him to drink some fluids he said he would, I went out for a morning work out and told him if he doesn’t touch his drink we’re going to the doctor. Sure enough I get back and he didn’t drink anything so we’re off to the doctor. We arrive and now he’s not able to walk that well. We see the doctor right away and he verifies his pulse is 150+ and they can’t get a blood pressure reading. They tell us to go to the ER. Luckily it’s right across the street so we get to the ER and they start working on my Dad. All of a sudden I realize things are very…serious. A room full of doctors in the ER working on my Dad, I had to leave the room. They come back and tell me they had to chock his heart several times to get it back to a normal rhythm. I’m also told he potentially had several small heart attacks during the ordeal. They admit him to a room, give him some meds to stabilize his heart and he appears to be ok. He’s awake and talking, my wife and kids are able to visit with him. When all of the fluids they gave my Father come back up, I knew my Father was in a bad way. During the next several hours my Dad’s heart goes into that scary arrythmia again and each time they have to shock him, his heart stops a few times, but he pulls through. The doctor now tells me the only thing keeping my Father alive is the medicine they are giving him. They tell me to prepare for the worst and I’ll have to make a decision at some point over the night. I talk to my sister and brother and we all agree to let the doctors do what they can but also do what they recommend. It dawns on me I’ll have to be the one to tell the doctor to end my Dad’s life. My Dad passed away early that morning on 11/03/2023.
The past year I’ve been living with the reality and guilt that more than likely I could have saved my Dad’s life if I was involved a bit more. To die from heart damage due to dehydration is so preventable. Even though we were monitoring his drinking, I didn’t realize just how dehydrated my Father had become. I will live with this guilt for the rest of my life.
We just recently sold the house that my Father and Mother lived at for over 40 years. To say goodbye to that house and the memories that were made there, it was very… hard.
The past year I have been dealing with severe anxiety from just about anything health related. I have been living with heart arrythmia my entire life since I was 19 when I went on a tuna and grapefruit diet and lost 100lbs in less than 6 months which caused mild damage to my heart. I’ll never forget the ER doctor telling me “your heart rate is 300bpm, calm down!”. yep… I was severely dehydrated and my electrolytes were way off.
Even though I’ve been VERY physically active this year I still get those arrythmias a few times a week. I keep thinking… if something bad happens it’s karma for not taking care of my Father as good as I could have. I realize that’s silly and my Father would never want anything bad to happen to me, but that’s still something I have been dealing with the past year.
So yah… I’m scared about tomorrow’s surgery. Not of the surgery itself, just of the going under part. I was going to write a few last words incase well…. you know… but my brother jokingly reminded me…and I’ll leave this post with that…..
“Don’t worry.. you’re definitely going to wake up from the surgery, and when you do you’ll either see your Wife, God or the Devil.”
October 1, 2024
