Alan's Story: Laparoscopic Procedure Reduces Recovery Time

The whole thing goes back several years and the first time that I noticed problems was on Thanksgiving.  After I had a big Thanksgiving dinner, I felt horribly sick that evening.  After that from time-to-time I would get that same kind of feeling after eating – getting a bloated feeling, full, getting nauseous, and, as it became more frequent, I would have to vomit or just you know, get rid of it, and it was the only thing that brought any relief.  And at first I just kind of put it off because it didn’t happen all the time.  As it started to happen more frequently, I started thinking I ought to do something about it.  My wife thought I ought to do something about it even before I did, but I eventually sought out a gastroenterologist. I was so sick and I couldn’t get over it at home. Nothing I did made any difference.

So, I end up going to the emergency room in Upper Valley and was evaluated there, and the emergency room physician also made a comment that it may have been the biggest hernia he had ever seen.  February 2015 was when it kind of came to a head, and I had another episode of being very sick. I could not get it corrected and decided I needed to return to the emergency room, which I did because it helped me before.  But this time, they didn’t send me home.  They kept me for several days.  I had gotten sick to the point where I was dehydrated.  They didn’t want to send me home and wisely they kept me for several days.  They talked about doing an emergency surgery, but the surgeon and the other people did not really want to do emergency surgery.  They rather have it planned and have me in better shape.

Well, the surgeon who performed my surgery was Dr. Lowry from Miami County Surgeons.  He was called in to consult when I was admitted to the emergency room in February, and he’s the one who laid out the nature of the treatment.  I felt much better after finding out the surgery was going to be laparoscopic – less invasive.

So, when I went in—in the end of February, had the surgery, stayed in the hospital for several days as part of the recovery I was really pleased with the effects of the surgery.  I mean, it—it fixed the problem and I did lose quite a bit of weight. I think my cholesterol came down, my blood pressure came down, so there had been some good side effects. 

Shortly after the surgery when I asked the surgeon about recovery my biggest concern was could I play golf again?  And much to my surprise he said, “Yeah, go ahead if it doesn’t—if it doesn’t bother you, you go right ahead, there’s no restrictions on playing golf as long as it doesn’t hurt or bother you.” I swung easy and really watched it.  It turns out it probably wasn’t necessary but that’s what I did. And so gradually my confidence grew and was able to return to golf, which I do all the time now.

I think the biggest thing would be people should not put it off as long as I did because the whole process was really not as difficult as I expected it to be. And particularly afterwards I think the very little limitation in activity or anything other than the first week or so. I think it works so well that it, you know, is well worth doing it sooner. You know if they tell you it’s time then to do it right away.