My Experience

I was diagnosed with an inguinal hernia. The night before the surgery, I was told not to eat anything starting at midnight.

At the hospital, I put on a hospital robe, got weighed, had my blood pressure taken and had other basic tests. I then sat in a reclining seat and was given an IV which started with saline (it made my arm feel very warm and tingly). I chatted with the nurse for a bit to get an understanding of the recovery time, and then sat and waited for a while.

The anesthesiologist came over and talked about the sedative. I was told there’d be a local and I’d be sedated(although when I was there I was actually put completely to sleep – slightly different from my expectation).

Next, the doctor came over, and we also talked about recovery time. His information was different than the nurse’s. The general impression I had was “you’ll be on the couch for a couple of days, and probably won’t do any major physical activities for a couple of weeks.”

Several minutes later I was escorted into the procedure room, then laid down on the table. They put a “hot air blanket” on me, which was a truly awesome feeling. About 10 seconds of chit-chat later and I was out to sleep.

I woke up in the recovery room as my wife arrived. Initially I was heavily sedated – everything was fine. As the drugs wore off, and when I was home, the pain set in. Within a few hours we were on the phone with the doctor to increase the medication (5mg vicodin every 6 hours – not enough for me at 190lbs, 6’2”, I thought). The first 2 days all movement was painful, and the only comfortable position was lying down with my leg propped up.

The next 3 or so days I could walk short distances (e.g., down the hallway) slowly, and it wasn’t as painful to move.

At the end of the first week I was walking semi-normally, and I went back into the office (where I spend most of the day at the desk) for most of the day.

By the end of the second week, walking is normal, though there is some residual pain.