Okay, I need to back up a bit. This fall went nuts for me around the middle of last month. Shortly after the races were over I started feeling a little pain in my abdomen. I didn’t have any idea what it was. After a weekend of not sleeping well I went to the clinic on a beautiful Monday morning only to find that I have a hernia. No telling what caused it. I doubt that it was any one thing in particular, it was just time. You see, I have a family history that I though was going to skip me but no, it was not to be.
My grandfather had two hernia operations. I can’t image what that was like back in the day. My dad says he was in the hospital for weeks each time. My dad had on when he was in college. In fact it kept him out of the Olympic trials. He says he would have never made it but you know, they run the races for a reason. Anyway, skip ahead many years and my daughter, just an infant really. Is just crying and crying and we can’t figure out why. This was my first and so heading immediately to the hospital was not an unreasonable task. Sure enough, I get to hand my baby over to a nurse who disappears into the operating room for hours. Very scary for a young parent. All went fine and the the boy comes along and sure enough “pop” he has one also. No big deal this time, It’s almost routine.
Both those kids are away at college now and I’m plodding along trying to pretend I’m still young and at the same time keep up with my wife and “pop” me too. No heavy lifting involved, no grunt first, nothing just one day I was fine, the next day I need an operation.
It took two weeks to get into the surgeons schedule and after talking to him for all of 5 minutes I had my surgery date. Of course I had a few things planned in between. I’ve been working on getting a mountain bike trail set up at Pinnacle Mountain State Park. I would have to put off starting on the trail but I wanted to visit some of the area to get ideas first so Lisa and my friend Daron and his dog headed into the woods for a quick trail scout. More on the trail later but just to let you know, this could be a really good one.
Next I was scheduled to go to South Carolina (Charleston to be exact) for several days of meetings and touring some of their state park system. We were flying so I felt I could make it. The trip was great and I only had a couple of issues in the middle of the night with pain. I don’t sleep well in hotel rooms anyway so it was okay. Visited a few of the local pubs with some work friends, ate good and made it home in one piece. I’m really glad I went. We do this once a year each time with a different state and this was a really good visit.
Upon returning I was scheduled to be at a mountain bike trail dedication and inaugural ride. (did I mention that my job sucks?!?) I went and I’ll talk more about that in a future post. I’m also going to let this post rest a bit and then I’ll get into surgery and recovery, I know you can’t wait.
