Where's Hazmat? The Long Road to Recovery

Yes, it's been a while, and for that I'm sorry, but I think after you've read my story you'll be happy to cut me a little slack.

About a month ago I was rolling and experienced "eye-popping" pain in the "groin" area. From now on I'll refer to this area as the "man-basket" just to keep this simple and above board. At first I assumed that the athletic protector (read "cup") caught something and applied some pressure. Now we all know what a kick in the crotch feels like, this was a good bit like that, but it seemed to last a good bit longer than I can ever remember one lasting in the past.

Nevertheless, like a good man I decided it was fine and that it would just "heal up on it's own after a relaxed weekend".

And it did.. sort of.

The very next week it happened two more times while rolling, now the pain was more intense, and there was.. hmm.. how do I say this.. more "goods" in the man basket.

A few days later the swelling became too much to endure so I went to see a doctor. Poor guy had to end his day checking out the "goods"..

Short aside.. once you inject yourself into the medical world you can toss out your modesty, pride, and sense of privacy..

Anyway, his diagnosis.. Inguinal Hernia

I'll let you google that up, as I'm sure you are going to, I'll wait here for you to read a few things, look at some pictures (only if you are crazy!) and then come back to read on.

So? Had enough? Unpleasant eh.

So, now I had to go get an ultrasound of the man basket. Yes, just like it sounds, just like your wife experienced when she was pregnant with your child, I was about to have my equipment scanned.

That experience in and of itself was very interesting, in fact the ultrasound machine crashed during the scan! Yes, it blue screened and crashed. Some guys get all the luck... sheeez.

After my ultrasound was complete ( and I had giant glossy photos of the man basket) I was off to meet with a surgeon.

The surgeon meeting was equally difficult to get to, thankfully my wife knows many people in the business and was able to get me in quickly.

The surgeon was a consummate professional, in fact he was a high school and college wrestler, so after he checked out everything we spent a few minutes talking about BJJ and how quickly I could get back to my sport. I felt very good knowing he understood my concerns and motivations.

Now.. the surgery. Not too bad, but the recovery has been a bit harder than I expected. I'm still not sleeping and moving around as well as I'd hoped. My future return to BJJ is marked on the calendar and I'm following my surgeons recovery plan, sleep, rest, eat well, no lifting over 15 lbs, etc, etc.

So bottom line, I hope to be back on the mats in November, my plan is to go back in and have fun, as I'm sure my game will take a hit.

Thanks for reading guys, perhaps I'll come back with some video suggestions from my recovery.

Recovery Fast!

-hz

Blogged with the Flock Browser