The Surgery

Well, just 11 days after the marathon in Colorado I went in for surgery to repair an umbilical hernia. That's a hole in the abdominal wall right at the top of the belly button. When I gained all of this weight, some fat poked through the hole and gave me a half inny-half outy belly button that was just weird. Kelley and the kids made fun of me enough to make me want to get it fixed. This problem will not fix itself, surgery is the only option, and if a piece of stomach or guts squeeze through the hole it can be painful and sometimes fatal, if irritation around the hole causes internal bleeding. Better to get it fixed now.

You have to wake up really early for surgery. So nothing to eat or drink after midnight, and I had the alarm set for 4:45 to get to the hospital on time. Funny thing happened, though. Around 3 am, the phone starts ringing and something is shining into our bedroom window? I walked out to the living room in my skivvies to find a cop on my deck! After turning off the alarm he asked if we owned a pickup truck. I said we did, that green Ford parked in the front yard. He then told us it wasn't in the front yard anymore! Someone stole our truck, went on a joyride through Cary. Turns out a friend of his stole a suburban, and they were racing down Maynard ave when a Cary Police officer found them and pursued the high speed chase!! This is insane!

Eventually the truck was found in some apartment complex parking lot where the thief escaped on foot. The thief even set the parking brake! So strange. The truck was not damaged. But the cops did have to toss it for fingerprints, as well as they checked my car for fingerprints. So far the thief has not been caught. The hardest part of that whole affair was dealing with the cops and driving to Cary to pickup the truck without being able to have any coffee or breakfast! We got back home and the cops left at 4:35, just 10 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off.

Ready to sleep or get breakfast

the "before" belly button

Kelley thought this picture was disturbed. What is that giant pink orb back there?

Still mean mugging with my duel IV's in the back of my hands

The surgery itself went fine. I talked to the doctor, the nurse had never heard a stolen car story the morning of surgery before, we had a few laughs. Eventually they wheeled me back to the OR and I heard "here comes the good stuff" and the next thing I knew it was 11:30 and I was back in recovery.

The surgery was a laparoscopic robotic procedure. The doctor actually sat off in a corner playing a video game that controlled the robot. It went in through my side, stitched up the hole, added a mesh in the middle of the layers of the abdominal wall, then sewed in the mesh. Really cool and it was all over in about 2 hours.

now flat?

got some cool new scars

The "after" belly button

Recovery is the hardest part. We scheduled the surgery for after the marathon because I can't do any kind of training or lift anything over 10 lbs for 4-6 weeks after the surgery. I don't do well with idle hands, so this was really hard for me. 3 weeks after the surgery I had a follow up and the doc cleared me to resume normal activities, but still take it easy for another week or two.

This surgery was the last prerequisite in the transition I'm trying to make to revitalize my overall health. Now it's time to get to work!