Well, yesterday I went back to the doctor for my follow-up appointment for my hernia surgery.  He told me everything looks good.

I have a little bruising around the incision that has started to go down over the past couple of days.  He said it should be completely gone within a couple days.

Unfortunately, he said I would still have some swelling around the incision for another month.  Its not swollen that much right now, but it does bother me from time to time.

I am pretty much back to normal with very little pain.  When I wake up in the morning, or get up after sitting for a while I am a little sore but once I get moving I am fine.

Oh, and the doctor also told me that my hernia was pretty big.  He said it was no wonder it was bothering me.  He also said that I have had it since birth.

Well, we had a nice weekend camping.  We mostly sat around the camp site and talked since it was so hot, but we did go out and walked around a little.  It was a nice relaxing weekend basically.

Unfortunately, I was/am still sore from my hernia surgery so that held me back from doing some things.  I go to see the doctor for the follow-up surgery on Tuesday this week.  I believe he will basically just look at it and tell me I’m good to go, but I will be sure to update you all on that.

I AM VERY PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT THIS POST IS MY 200TH POST SO FAR ON MY SITE!!!  THIS IS A HUGE MILESTONE FOR MY WEBSITE IN MY OPINION.  I FIRST STARTED BLOGGING ON THIS SITE IN SEPTEMBER OF 2005.

Well, I had my surgery on Friday.  I was hoping to post an update on how this went before now, but even though its kind of late, here it goes…

Everything went good before the surgery for the most part.  Of course I didn’t enjoy the IV part too well, and the antibiotics they gave me through it right before the surgery made my arm hurt a little bit.

I was in the outpatient recovery area for around an hour and a half before they took me upstairs to the Operating Room area.  There I waited for around 20-25 minutes before they took me out of there to the surgery room.  While in this room the doctor who did the surgery talked with me and answered my questions.  He also prayed with me which was kind of nice.

They gave me the option of either being put fully out or being left awake and put on local anaesthetic along with relaxing medicine.  I choose to be put fully out since I didn’t really like the idea of being awake for the procedure.

According to my parents the surgery took around 30-45 minutes.  The doctor told my parents that I had a pretty good size hernia and that it was apparent to him (somehow) that I have actually had it since birth.  The doctor said my muscles there were very strong so he didn’t need to use a mesh to repair it.

After I woke up I felt a little sick but was in pretty good shape.  I got out of surgery around 9:45 am and left the hospital around 1:20pm.  They gave me a vicodin pill to keep me pain free for the ride home and also gave me a prescription for vicodin.

Another cool thing they did was they gave me a medicine ball that had a long IV that went under the skin at my incision.  This thing gave me a pain killer at a steady dose of 2mg/hour for 2 days until we removed it per instructions.  The only thing I did not like about this was I had a huge ball taped to my side which made sleeping even harder.

After I got home I pretty much slept the rest of the day.  I was awake for a few hours around 10-12pm but went back to bed after that for another nice long nap till the afternoon the next day.

It really wasn’t till around Sunday night that I felt like getting up and moving around any.  On Monday I was starting to think I was getting back to normal but after I woke up on Tuesday I noticed the area around my incision was starting to become black and blue.

I was pretty sore on Tuesday and took it very easy.  I am hoping when I wake up tomorrow morning (Wednesday) that the bruising and swelling have gone down, or at least don’t get worse.

I have stopped taking the vicodin as of Monday and have been taking 2 Tylenol’s every 4 hours for the pain.  They actually said I could take 2 Tylenol’s and 3 Advil’s every 4 hours for pain after I stop taking the vicodin, but I think that is a little overkill (close to overdose) so I haven’t done that.

Well, that’s all for now.  I am going to attempt to go to school again tomorrow, but I am going to have my parents drive me.  Hopefully I am able to do that.  I should post here again in a day or so to update on my condition further.

Well, its about time to go.  I have to be at the hospital at 7am and the surgery will start at 9am.  I am a little nervous, but not as much as I was last night.  The surgery is suppose to take about an hour.  So I should be in surgery from 9am-10am.  Afterwards, I am expected to be sent home around 2 hours afterwards if all is good.  So I should be sent home right around noon.

Hopefully all will go well.  I will post again after the surgery as soon as possible, but I will probably want to come home and go straight to bed so it may be a while.

Well, tomorrow is the day.  Tomorrow morning at 9am I will have my hernia surgically repaired.  I have to be at the hospital at 7am and can not drink or eat after midnight tonight.  Although, they did tell me I could take small sips of water if I was thirsty up till 7am.

This will be my third surgery in my lifetime so far, and hopefully one of the lasts for at least a long while.

Well, I’ll probably post again in the morning right before I leave just to say if I’m nervous or not.  Hopefully, I will feel like posting after the surgery also.