2013-10-01 – Happy Diogenes Day! If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you know that today is the day for celebrating truth telling. But I’ve written enough on the subject I’m moving on. If you want to read about Diogenes Day, I have some links at the end of this post.
Instead, I want to tell you about a different personal holiday. Today is the 20th anniversary of my second hernia operation. (Hernia? Jesus!*) I know this, because the operation took place on the 5th day after my son Cal was born. Cal celebrated his 20th birthday Friday.
The celebrated hernia was likely earned on the last vacation Kit and I had with our then-only child Nat, or so my doctor said. He said it was common to split a gut when schlepping luggage on vacation. I didn’t remember the tearing, but I do remember the pain. I had suggested delaying the surgery so it wouldn’t affect the care of our newborn, when he came, but the doctor said I’d be worse than useless if I didn’t get it taken care of right away. Friday, October 1, 1993, was the first available date.
Kit, of course, had a dim view of all this hernia talk. My first hernia was repaired about two months before our wedding and I took weeks to be fully recovered. This was not an attractive prospect for the soon-to-be mother of two (they are only 19 months apart). She only gave her blessing to the procedure if I would be fully recovered the next day.
And so I was.
Kit attributes the speedy recovery to a much more skillful surgeon. Maybe so. But I attribute it to the exigencies of the moment. Unlike a certain Congress we all know, but who shall remain nameless. I had an October 1 deadline to meet and I met it. (I don’t really remember which hernia was on the left and which was on the right, but somehow I feel like the hernia on the right was the one that took a long time to recover from.)
I’m not saying that I didn’t shed a few tears. If you can find my surgical team (I’m not saying who they were and my anonymity is protected by HIPAA), they will tell you how pitiful I was. I was crying like a regular John Boehner. The surgeon even offered to put off the surgery. But the chips were down. I couldn’t let down my wife and new baby, so I whined, “let’s do it.”
And so it was done. Twenty years ago today.
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Here are the links for those of you curious about Diogenes Day (I’m assuming you are new around here):
- Diogenes Day (April 1)
- 90 More Shopping Days (July 3)
- Diogenes Day Is Coming (Sept. 15)
- Truth About Diogenes Day (Sept. 26)
- Diogenes Day Is October 1 (Sept. 29)
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[UPDATE: Go to my Diogenes Day page to see these and other DD posts.]
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* Hernia? Jesus! refers to an embarrassing moment in the movie “Summer of ’42.” Not sure why I remember it, but I’m not the only one.
Eightoh9 