Word: hernia
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...reminder from my doctor that it was time for my annual physical. It will probably be the routine drill. He will listen to my lungs, flash his light in my eyes and ask me to cough a couple of times as he examines for a possible hernia. He might run an EKG to test my heart or order an MRI if he sees something suspicious. But that's it. And that's sufficient as far as I'm concerned. I've always left my physicals with a clean bill of health, confident that nothing terrible was brewing inside...
...what are the risks? "As with any major operation, there is a chance of dying, of reoperation due to bleeding, of infection, of vein clots in the legs or a hernia at the incision," says Dr. Arthur Matas, director of the renal-transplant program at the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. Even laparoscopy, a relatively new technique for kidney donation, is not risk-free. Doctors estimate that chances of dying from the procedure are about...
...This hernia-inducing monster measures in at 37 by 27 inches and resembles less a book than an ornate piece of antique furniture. "That doesn't sound very imposing," explains Halpert, "but it takes the strength of two to move it, an action we perform as seldom as possible." Though only two inches thick, the book's binding drips with metal ornamentation and decorative gilt. Houghton's two copies lie comfortably in custom-made cloth cases, so comfortably, in fact, that librarians hate to disturb them...
Adding insult to injury, many "survivors," as they call themselves, report that doctors and other medical personnel routinely leer at or ridicule the inert bodies before them. Jeanette Tracy, a television producer from Dallas, suffered this when she was anesthetized for a hernia operation in 1991. Enduring pain she describes as "a blow torch in my stomach...every tissue tearing like a piece of paper," she heard the anesthesiologist say she had "the right size breasts" and was in "great shape" for a mother of two. "You can't cover yourself," she says furiously. "You're screaming as loud...
...Hernia surgery is synonymous with painful and slow recovery, which is one reason that only 700,000 out of nearly 5 million U.S. sufferers seek treatment. In repairing a serious groin hernia, surgeons generally stitch in a synthetic screen to cover a tear in the abdominal wall from which a portion of the intestine may protrude. Now, however, they can simply plug the opening with a cone-shaped mesh device. Plugging rather than patching the hole causes less strain on the surrounding tissue and reduces the extent of both surgery and recovery time...