A Friend in Need

Tramadol Hexal is a centrally-acting synthetic analgesic used to treat moderate to moderately-severe pain. I love it, especially in combination with an ibuprofen!

Home Again

I am back home again. Thank you all for the well-wishes!

The surgery was somewhat more extensive than what I had been referred for. When the surgeon ripped open my belly he discovered that i had coughed up two additional smaller hernias north of the tangerine-sized one. The two smaller ones had the size of small grapes.

However all has gone extremely well although I am tired and have a bit of pain, especially when I have my coughing bouts.

Going to bed now to get some more sleep and rest, I hope to see you all this evening.

Operation Bock

I am happy to report that the Swedish healthcare system is still working smoothly and efficiently.

As some of you may remember, well it was only less than three months ago but I know that many of my readers have lots of more important stuff on their minds, I coughed up an umbilical hernia in the beginning of March this year.

The hernia became strangled later the same evening. It was not a pleasant condition, but I was well taken care of at the hospital emergency room and could come back home later the same night.

I have now been notified that they have scheduled me for operation on June 11, the time of day is not yet known. If everything goes well I will be sent home the same day.

Even if I know I need the operation and that it is a rather minor and undramatic procedure I still got a little worried. Luckily for me, when it comes to healthcare issues, I can consult with my dear friend Zigadena Gabardini. She can always answer the questions I have and that calms me down. This time I could also draw on the previous experience of her hubby Emarald Harvey. The poor man contracted an umbilical hernia lugging around Ziga´s extremely heavy luggage when they met the last time in first life.

So by June 12, 2012, I will hopefully no longer have the ugly little lump on my stomach which I constantly have to push back in. Bock with Brock will be gone again.

The Citrus Party

The lovely, crazy and beautiful people at Club OrmDricka threw a party with a citrus theme in honor of my post A Little First Life Drama. Of course I had to drop in before crawling to bed.

There was some talk about my buddy Emarald Harvey´s balls when he first met the lovely Zigadena Gabardini in first life.

Apparently the meeting took place in the lovely city of Barcelona, Spain, a few years ago. Em claimed he had actually gotten a hernia from behaving as a perfect Dutch gentleman around Ziga. Well, I had to set him straight of course, so I informed him that what he had was clearly a bad case of blue balls and no hernia at all.

A Little First Life Drama

Man in doorway, art by Eugène Jansson

You may be wondering why I didn't post yesterday, so this is what happened in my first life.

I got home from work around 4 PM. Suddenly I got a really heavy coughing attack and I could actually feel something rupture under my beautiful belly button. A few minutes later a small swelling appeared under the  belly button. It hurt a little but not too bad, so I went for my afternoon nap.

When I woke up two hours later the swelling was the size of a tangerine and was all swollen, hard and tender to the touch. I tried pushing it back inside without success, so I called the regional medical hotline to ask for some advice about what to do.

The nurse on the other end told me that I most likely had gotten a rupture in a weak spot under the naval and the intestines had pushed through and I had gotten an umbilical hernia. As the hernia was now hard and big it had probably become strangulated. She told me I was in need of immediate care and should go to the emergency at once. I argued with her and told her that I was a reasonably fit man in otherwise good health and and didn't have any bad pains from it and asked if I should really go there, couldn't I just book an appointment with a doctor on Monday and have it taken care of? She then asked me, "Do you want to die?".

I got the message and walked to the emergency at the hospital that is only about a kilometer from where I live. Once I got there my problem did not seem that serious compared to everything else they had to deal with on this busy Friday night. After an hour a lot of tests and blood work were taken, which all confirmed that I was in good health except for the hernia, which by now had grown to the size of an orange.

After the tests I waited around for a few hours more, all the while feeling guilty for being at the emergency ward with something that didn't seem important. At midnight I asked a nurse if it wasn't better if I went back home and made a reservation to see a doctor on Monday. She told me I should stay and would be taken care of in 10-15 minutes.

I was later led to a examination room and was seen by a good doctor of American extraction. He then gave me two injections, a tranquilizer and a painkiller, after which he successfully pushed the swelling - by this time the size of a small grapefruit - back into my belly.

The doctor told me he was going to refer me to surgery and that they would contact me in the not to distant future, meanwhile I should just keep pushing the intestines back inside and come back for help if I could not do it. I could then finally leave the hospital at 2:30 AM and walk back home while i was still a little dazed by the tranquilizer.

I will now answer to the name "Bock with Brock" (The Swedish word for hernia is "bråck", which is pronounced like the American name Brock)