Second verse!
Living with a hernia, ow
All the time, such aggravation
Living with a hernia
Gonna be my ruination
Living with a hernia
Got to have an operation
Feel so old
–“Living with a Hernia”, Weird Al Yankovic
Almost exactly 13 years to the day, I noticed that something didn’t seem quite right: a bit of discomfort in the groin, perhaps a bit bulgier than it should be (given I need to lose a few pounds, but still).
My physician (per Weird Al’s lyrics) is not Dr. Jones – it’s Dr. Emma – though she still had me take my trousers off and told me to cough. “Yep, hernia.”
I’m not entirely sure this is a “new” hernia, either. I think – albeit with my limited medical knowledge, here – that this is a continuation of my first one, on the left side of my groin. It just took my right side 13 years to catch up. Or fail. Whichever.
Like the hernia on my left, it seems inguinal – a failure of the abdominal wall due to stress from lifting and whatnot. The irony of this is that, when I first noticed the issue a couple of weeks ago (which is when I booked the appointment that took me two weeks to actually get), I hadn’t done any heavy lifting (unless you count biking up two hills several times a week). The last two days? Two tonnes of wood as we tore down our fence in preparation for a new one. And today, I feel good.
Go figure.
But a hernia it almost certainly is. I need an ultrasound to confirm it (I’ll see if I can get them to look at both sides, just to be safe), and then likely another surgery to get it fixed.
I suppose it could be worse. Just google what other types of hernias there are and you’ll understand why I’m counting my blessings that it’s not any of those.
