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OK...

For a fairly long time, I've been fairly sure that my fingers and wrists (not necessarily my arms) are pretty darn strong, compared to those of most (who don't work with their hand, yet consider themselves to be "strong"...UNLESS they do hours of mountain or wall-climbing regularly...etc.)

After tearing into these summer repairs and - once again - spending the better part of each day holding sousaphones (with one hand) at odd angles way out in front of me (for various routine "I ain't got nobody helping me" repair reasons) as well as pulling horrible dents out of most of them...

The ONE spot (in my *both-sides groin hernia surgery - high on the right) that I THOUGHT had FINALLY healed...STILL "stings" just a bit...

...so obviously, I'm using SOME muscles other than my hands, wrists, arms, etc.

oh well...nothin's poifek

I ain't complainin'...just commentin'...sure beats stuffin' my guts back in over-and-over...
_________________________
* one-week follow up visit with the surgeon: "Well...You won the prize" (for the worse ones he had ever seen).

And you fussed at me when I expressed concern. I am, unfortunately, a veteran of 11 different surgeries, 4 of those were repairs of what the colon surgeon messed up. The biggest surgery was getting a kidney transplant in 1999. I am having a shoulder replaced next month (long story about clumsiness), and I have found as I get older I don't bounce as high each time. Fortunately, the gut is healed up, and I can play my horn, but anytime the surgeon messes around with muscle, sinew, etc., there is a change. I've learned to pace myself, which I was never able to do in my younger days. Slow down just a bit and take care of that wound. You ain't bulletproof.

Me thinks I sent you a picture a while ago of a sousaphone holding contraption that would hold said sousaphone at various angles…

.

I was much better after a week, but apparently - as my surgeon reported what he found - my surgery was epic. By Mardi Gras (this celebration was before the real Mardi Gras date, and less than a month after the surgery), I marched in a parade and played a gig at a country club following in the parade, and the drive there and back was nearly four hours. I wasn’t having to be terribly careful, but was still “aware”.
I’m all healed up on the outside, but the little occasional stinging place is probably (??) a major anchoring point for that mesh.
I think FatBastard in his case probably weighs at least 70 pounds, and - every once in a while I feel that spot when lifting him into the back of the Toyota Matrix. The thing that I will probably refrain from doing is picking up 250 pound chunks of trees – as I was doing prior to the surgery – and tossing them in the trailer for removal. I’ll figure out other strategies, or cut them up smaller.
Holding twenty-something pound bodies of sousaphones out in front of me isn’t any big deal, but I guess it pulls and tugs little bit. Re-staining the house, I’m doing all the 20 - 30 ladder work, because my son has never been particularly fond of being up that high. It’s fine up there, and I don’t feel any less capable than I ever did. I had been staying off ladders for several months - not due to the surgery, put due to background daily dizziness/nausea - after receiving a coerced internal mystery substance (about which we are discouraged to discuss, here). Mrs. bloke got me over that via heavy dosages of particular vitamins and supplements.
…so I’m doing really well, and can’t complain at all. If I end up unexpectedly selling several tubas, I might think about getting a couple of tooth implants (optional), and - when I finally have to - I’m going to investigate pursuing this cataract mess. (For the time being, it’s more convenient to be able to focus near and far, and not wear glasses.)
A whole lot of people are in much worse shape. I’m taking no medicines, and don’t need any.
When I finally do croak – whenever that is – I sure hope it comes quick.

Well, actually croaking can be delayed as long as it likes.

But once it gets here, I’d prefer it do it’s job quickly, yes!!

Glad you are doing okay!

You've talked a lot about this... but I still have no clue (and no desire to learn) what a hernia is. And I'm good with that.

Glad you're almost back to 100%!

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:14 am You've talked a lot about this... but I still have no clue (and no desire to learn) what a hernia is. And I'm good with that.

Glad you're almost back to 100%!

It when a muscle (or muscles) in your outer abdominal wall become goofed up and allow "stuff that they're supposed to hold in" (all sorts of stuff, depending upon where the weak place/s is/are ) slip through the abdominal wall, and find their way to just underneath the surface of the skin.

creepy/scary

me...??
I pushed everything back in place (over-and-over) until I had the time/money to deal with it (mostly the time).
People tell me, "...but don't you know what could have happened if blah-blah-blah !?!?!?"
to which I respond, "yeah, and that's why - every time something slipped through, I immediately pushed it back where it belonged."
"buy you're not a doctor...You could you POSSIBLY know what you were doing? !?!?"
"...because it's ME, and MY own innards."

bloke "who probably should have submitted it for peer-review"

If it pops out, pop it back in!!

After my hernia surgery, I still had twinges that could get pretty sharp. I've always tended to overinhale when I play, and I forced myself to go against my habits and take in a bit less air, not to force it. After a month or so the twinges went away. If I pull in too much air (back to my old habits), I can start to hurt again, so I ease off and play shorter phrases and have less discomfort.

I'll try not to completely hijack bloke's thread, but maybe my experience is relevant for someone. Glad you are recovering well, bloke and just don't do too much [literal] heavy lifting for a while. I had bilateral inguinal hernia surgery at the age of 15 and I'm 75 tomorrow and that surgery has held well all these years. However, my great grandfather, the grain merchant, used to lift heavy sacks of grain and he died on the kitchen table while they were operating on a strangulated hernia...so hernias may well run in my family.

Warning! Long rant about various hernia surgeries ahead: I had an umbilical hernia in my 50's and then I ended up with a freak diaphragmatic hernia in my 60's. This was a hole in my diaphragm about six inches wide. Don't know how I got it, it is often a weight lifters injury or comes about from a severe blow to the abdomen. Don't know how long it was there, as it was misdiagnosed at first when I was way out of breath and had co-occurring anemia. I did let teen agers take shots to my abdomen for fun and I did, without proper preparation, sit down at a squat machine and press 340 lbs, so one of those things might have been responsible...maybe a previous hiatal hernia ripped.

At any rate, in my town, the surgeon assigned was a thoracic surgeon who did mostly hearts all day. I only found out later that surgery for diaphragmatic hernias has only about a 60% success rate. The first surgery let go in 24 hours and was redone in three days. They nicked the lymph membrane that holds (who knew?) the lymph in a reservoir under the diaphragm and had to do another 3 hour surgery to fix that. Eight months later the repair let go again and I had it repaired by the same guy because they told me no one else in town did that surgery. Later a nurse friend told me I should have gone out West to Utah, where the guru of that kind of surgery and his stable of assistants did this stuff all day long. I have a scar that runs from about a foot below the nape of my neck down my spine to my waste and around to the front and down below my belly button. I found out that any time you have a vertical incision in your abdomen, you might have a pop up hernia in your abdominal wall from that weak spot and I have had two repaired since the major surgeries. I now have a third and the docs tell me those can be left alone, but you can't strain and there is pain when the hernia gets out and gets stuck and it is painful to stick it back in. But reversion rates for repair are 30 to 60% for people like myself who are overweight, so I'm losing weight in preparation for having this fixed once and for all, but I still have 40 lbs to go.

Ironically, this injury is what led me to take up the tuba more seriously. I had a tuba as part of my collection of brass instruments, but I took it up because playing the trumpet with all the pressure that entails above the staff became uncomfortable. You move a lot of air with the tuba, but you don't use a lot of pressure. Maybe I'll play trumpet again once this last hernia is fixed. The two previous repairs that didn't hold were done by slicing and stitching muscles and using mesh, but now they tell me the best way to do the repair is to use laproscopy and go inside the peritoneal membrane and unroll some mesh and tack it to the back of said membrane. So you don't have a "cork" of mesh and stitches, you have a cloth spreading any pressure on the repair over a larger area of relatively healthy muscle. Lots to know about hernias, so if you get an abdominal hernia, explore what procedure works best and find a doc who does a lot of them and has a good success rate. There is even a hernia repair risk calculator on line which will tell you your chances of a repair going bad. Best to keep the weight off and maybe not have to deal with a hernia to start with...

Sorry for the rant, but as I say, maybe it will help someone who has read this far.

royjohn, tuba newbie at 75 y/o

Now that this thread is sloshing around a bit, I'll add my $.02.

I trained as a surgeon back in the dark ages (1968-1972), but abandoned it after I knew I wasn't passionate enough about it to maintain my skills. Hence I've been on the operator's side of this issue, and as of May 24 I got to experience the patient's side as well.

As we age into our second century of life our bodies begin their pre-programmed descent into infirmity. This is largely manifested by the dissolution of connective tissue, that which essentially keeps us together, collagen if you will. I was made aware of this when in my 50's I experienced 'vitreous separation' in both eyes, a condition where the vitreous humor of the eyeball separates from the underlying retina. Welcome to planned obsolescence. About 15 years ago during a coughing fit with a viral URI (common cold) I felt pain in my left groin along with a small bulge in the area. My age-related-weakened connective tissue had given way leading to a direct inguinal hernia.

I ignored it while reducing it (pushing it back in) whenever necessary. The Medicare Annual Wellness Exams would eventually lead to a complete physical exam such as I was taught in medical school thus making my primary care physician aware of the problem. Hah! Routine physical 'exams' these days consist of ordering tests and evaluating the results. Not all bad, but hardly comprehensive. So I finally called my hernia's presence to the attention of my physician who promptly referred me to a surgeon skilled in the laparoscopic repair of them.

The surgeon described the laparoscopic procedure in detail, explaining the mesh insertion and how it worked. He also gave me a 15# limit on any lifting for 2 weeks post-op. My tubas weigh more than that, so I deferred the surgery until the day after our Community Concert Band's last performance of the season May 23. As part of the general anesthesia for the surgery the anesthetist used Propofol, a twilight anesthetic. When I had cataract surgery several years ago Propofol was used, and I noticed that for a couple of weeks thereafter I couldn't easily carry out an organized sequence of tasks. The laparoscopic surgery only took an hour!

I returned home late that afternoon and had the required companion with me well into the night. I had urinary retention requiring catheterization post-op and I was left with urinary frequency. My cat, Shade, nestled into his usual position in my lap on our recliner, but he wasn't pleased by my frequent trips to the head. When I eventually went to bed, Shade, who never sleeps with me, crawled up between my legs in a feline display of support! Animals can be very perceptive. I used the hydrocodone tapering off for 4 days in order to control the rapidly diminishing pain before I went to acetaminophen supplemented with an occasional tramadol thereafter. I still have a little discomfort in the umbilical incision with tensing my abdominal wall that's easy to ignore. The swelling in the groin areal is now gone, and there's no pain there.

Is there a genetic or familial predisposition to developing hernias? Probably a little, but probably more important is the pre-programmed obsolescence our creator has gifted us with. Midline abdominal incisions are very painful post-op. And if one or more of those sutures that hold the median raphe (midline) together breaks or fails then an incisional hernia will ensue. Laparoscopic surgery when available is far preferable to open surgery.

I too noticed some tenderness just beneath my right costal margin (rib cage) post-op. I initially thought that it might represent a problem with my gall bladder until I explored a little more carefully and found that it was my abdominal wall there that was slightly swollen and tender. I presume that the surgeon enlisted the anesthetist's help in expelling the insufflated CO2 from my peritoneal cavity as the procedure ended, and their heavy hand caused a little trauma there.

BTW, I'm 79 and working on 80.

I didn’t use any pain meds at all - neither of the hydrocodone given to me after surgery to take home or OTC, because I was afraid it would slow down my bowels, and I figured that was the last thing I needed to have happen, considering the type of surgery I had.
Was it painful to do without pain medication? duh
(It still took about five days to “go” again, surely due to having been anesthetized.)

The thing that I will probably refrain from doing is picking up 250 pound chunks of trees – as I was doing prior to the surgery – and tossing them in the trailer for removal. I’ll figure out other strategies, or cut them up smaller.

I injured my back by moving chunks of tree and those are very big chunks of tree, the best part of 18 stone. Even the farmers I know wouldn’t shift weights like that … it’ll have to be cut up later so better off to have the advantage of smaller pieces sooner. The weight reminds me of when I was an Apprentice. Some big Indian guy wearing a Turban (Sikh) lifted an Anvil over his head and said what he thought about (Islamic) Pakistan, nobody argued with him.

I had my emergency surgery one year and 26 days ago, and have had no further troubles. I had to walk with a cane for about a month, just to be safe. (It was more for getting up, sitting down, and tackling stairs than for walking, TBH.) However, they also switched me over from my pills to insulin, and my life has been flipped upside down because of it. I have never felt worse, and it is a lot more expensive. I am going to see the doc in July and will request he put me back on Metformin and Glimepiride and greatly reduce the amount of insulin I am having to take.

The lyrics to the song, When I'm 64 are no longer relevant.

When Medicare was enacted in 1965, the male life expectancy was 67 years.

Besides other reasons (whereby listing them could trigger some and I'm just not willing to engage such people), the fact that the eligibility age and the life expectancy age have grown apart (currently: 79) is one of the problems involved in financing the program.