A couple weeks ago I went under the knife for the first time in my over 22 year Powerlifting career for inguinal hernia surgery. When I asked the doctor why I would end up with a hernia after lifting heavy for this long he said “young or old, people who lift and don't, hernias just happen.” Although only the right side was herniated he said the left side was compromised, so he ended up placing the mesh in both sides. Being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, getting 4 herniated discs in a car accident, then dealing with severe joint pain and eventually heart failure associated with my autoimmune disease has made it a rough couple of years, but I'll keep at it.

A couple kind of funny things that happened during the procedure were:

I had a discussion with the attractive anesthesiology PA prior to the surgery. She jokingly said that she was going to shave my beard while I was under. I replied with “Please don’t. Well, if you’re going to shave it, then at least do something creative.” When I woke up my nether region was completely shaved. No one informed me that this would be done. The surgery was laparoscopic, so I’m not sure why they would need to do it. When I told Trinity that I thought the anesthesiology PA did it she told me that she thought it would be unethical, but I just thought it was funny.

When I was coming out of anesthesia I told the nurse my pain scale was a 7. She replied “Are you sure? The last time you said it was a zero.” Considering I don’t remember that at all, I was still under anesthesia and it was a zero.

Since I own a business and have clients that I need to train in order to keep the gym open I only took two days off of work after the surgery and headed back the following Monday. This may not have been the best decision, but I couldn’t really afford to take more time off.

I started back training yesterday, a little less than two weeks post surgery. So far I only felt some light discomfort in the surgery area, but hope to be back squatting and deadlifting next week.