This morning I went to the hospital to get a hernia repiared that I had since at least August, 2009. We had hoped to fix it up earlier, but we wanted to wait until after the adoption trip, but that kept sliding from October to November to January. Now that it is "spring break" we decided to get it done. I was not allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight last night - I woke up at 12:30 and was psychologically thirsty - thirsty because I knew I could not have water. Prayer helped combat that and other aspects of the whole thing. I have decided, though, that I am pretty much a coward when it comes to pain, and impalement, even by an IV needle, is very disconcerting for me to look at. Having woken up in the middle of an oral surgery procedure when I was a teenager, I was reassured to find out repeatedly that I would be knocked completely out. It was wierd to be "switched off" in one room and wake up in another. Karen took me to the hospital about 8 am (Katie and Kris had good times with their babysitters). After the preliminary stuff, I went into surgery at about 9:30 am and was out of surgery in about an hour. This was laparoscopic procedure that involved a couple holes in my abdomen, both below the belly button. I had a "moderate" hernia on my right side. The surgeon checked the other side, but said nothing was necessary there. (That side has been sore in the past, I was hoping he would shore up both sides and be done with it.) I was coming out of sedation this morning and tried to get up. They told me it took the anesthesiologist and three nurses to hold me down. During recovery, the nurse asked if I had a history of being combative during sedation - I didn't remember any of this. Other odd things: 1) I was asking a nurse what was in my IV when I remembered my lecture descriptions about what would happen to somone if the salts in the IV fluids were either too dilute or too concentrated. 2) The operating table, with its arm rests sticking out like the arms of a cross, reminded me of a lethal injection table. 3) I stopped in a bathroom on the way to the operating room, looked in the mirror, and and had to laugh - with my gown and hair net I looked like I was in that episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy was working in the chocolate factory. We left for home about 1 pm. Anyway, I'm still a bit sleepy and have entered the realm of ice packs and Vicodin. Karen has been so awesomely supportive and wonderful during this whole thing. She even took the post-operative pic of me per my request.
Looking back on the blog associated with January 20, 2010, we did not have much to say, and still do not. Katie and I did go for a walk along the Nanming River and visited the Jiaxiu Pavilion again. There was music video being shot there. My information is sketchy, but I think it was a singer from Taiwan and the video may have had something to do with the Chinese New Year. I also think some of the dancers were staying at our hotel. We ate KFC by the hotel window and watched nice sunset.
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