I had two inguinal hernia repairs here within the last two years. I woke up from the first one in a lot of pain (not their fault - I had the same experience when I had my tonsils removed at age 5 and a couple times later in life) and the attending nurse was right on it trying to bring me to a comfortable state. That took a little while, as you can imagine, since overdosing me would be a much larger problem. She got it under control, however, and then was cognizant enough to realize the prescription I was about to be sent home with might not be sufficient, so she called my surgeon, Dr. Paul Fredette, and told him he needed to come back to the office (I was supposed to be out by 3:30, but it was now approaching 6PM) to sign for a more powerful pain-killer. Paul rides his bike to and from work and was already somewhere way south on James street, but upon getting the phone call from my nurse he had no problem pedaling back to the office to write a new prescription for me. My next five days of recovery went as planned.
Unfortunately for me, I managed to rip the repair job apart somehow over the next several months. Fortunately for me, Parkway Surgical was willing to take me on again.....only this time they prepared for my possible re-experience by augmenting the normal procedures with things like extra internal stitches, extra nerve-deadening salve in the muscle incision, extra in the skin incision as well, and a few other things I don't remember (I was a little out of it at that point). The result was a recovery period that was almost a "walk in the park" this time, even though Dr. Fredette was forced to slice along the exact same line he did before (which is tricky for those guys) and often causes problems not associated with a "first-time" operation. I didn't experience any of those and am hernia-free as I write this!
Thank you, Paul, and please give those ladies of yours a hug (and a raise, if you feel so inclined) for me. read more