| 3 December |
Incompetence |
Thy name is that asshat surgeon who did the hernia repair a few years ago.
Some of you might not have been reading my blog long enough, but in early January of 2006 I had a hernia repaired. The hernia was just above my belly button and was caused by a weakened scar from when I had my gall bladder removed several years before.
Actually, there were two surgeries and I should have known after the first one to allow the hack at me again. You see, he nicked my bowel on the first surgery. Having done that he closed up and put me on some rather intensive iv antibiotics. A few months later the second surgery successfully sealed over the hernia and I’ve not had any trouble with it since. However, there was a problem from the get go.
After the second surgery there was a large bulge just to the right of the incision site the right side of my abdomen about level with my belly button. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was just that the surgeon had sutured up the fat as well as fascia and muscle to make sure everything was closed up. That would create more scarring.
As the years went by I began to wonder what this large bulge was. Every time my IBS flared up that bulge became quite sensitive to pressure and I could feel movement in there when food passed through. If I laid on my right side and had any pressure on the area during a flare-up nausea would overcome me and well…you get the picture. Now that was something to be concerned about. So I finally had it investigated.
In September (just after Bran’s heart attack) I had a physical. Part of that was a mammogram (everything is normal, yay!) request and also a request to have the large bulge examined with an ultrasound. I finally remembered to make an appointment at the end of October and was scheduled for November 30. After having my poor old ladies squashed in two different directions each, I was taken to the ultrasound room. I laid down on the table and a friendly and pleasant tech scanned the bulge. After the doctor took at look at the scan I was informed that it was a rather large hernia and there was a fair amount of bowel poking out through the hole. Unlike the hernia I had before, because the hole in my muscle wall is large there is no strangulation of the bowel happening. This, of course, would change rather quickly should the bowel twist over itself.
So now I’ll be having a CT of the area because an ultrasound can’t do an efficient or clear scanning of the area to show exactly what’s going on. One thing for certain is that the incision grew from 1 inch to rather much larger than that. Another certainty is that I’m going to have to have this repaired. I have to hope that everything remains as it is (no twist of the bowel) long enough for me to have two weeks of holiday pay saved up. My boss is hoping that surgery won’t be scheduled for September because he’s going to Disney World. I don’t see an issue with that because there is staff who can take over my shifts. It would be better in August though because then students wouldn’t have to worry about school and my shifts would be easily covered.
I won’t be going back to the same surgeon, that’s certain. I was stupid enough to let him at me a second time. I can’t even be sure that he did the surgery. It’s possible that a minion of his did it. However, regardless he was the one who should’ve made sure that everything was done correctly. Obviously, since the bulge has been there from the day surgery was complete, he failed miserably.
Other than this fine issue I’m doing ok. I’m still reading a lot. The Redwall series were located and I’m reading the third book, Mattimeo. I just finished Beneath These Stones by Ann Granger. She does serial mysteries featuring Meredith Mitchell (a civil servant who works for the British foreign office) and Superintendent Alan Markby (her boyfriend). It was an interesting read. I wouldn’t turn down more by the same author should they come by my way. I also read three books by Sarah Caudwell. It took a while to get into them, but the idiosyncratic writing style of the author grew on me. I’m glad I kept plugging away at the first book because it was worth it. I also read the Chaos Chronicles Orphans of Chaos, Fugitives of Chaos and Titans of Chaos. They were quite good as well even if they’re not in my usual genre of mystery/true crime. I’m trying to expand my reading range and they definitely did that.
Work is going ok. There’s not a lot I can say about it. We have a nice crowd of residents. Each resident offers their own particular challenge but nothing that can’t be coped easily with.
The sale last weekend was a particularly difficult let down. I’ve decided to leave jewelry making alone for a while. I’ll put the beads away for a while and learn more about working with wire. We’ll see where things go from here.
That’s about it.
