Southern regions

I’ve recently returned from a month in Thailand, and I thought that an editorial about how important Thai caddies had been to my personal health maintenance program would be in order.

Unfortunately, before I could start putting down some nonsensical words about Thailand’s highly skilled, beautiful, young female caddies on my computer I received a call from my friendly surgeon’s office to inform me that they had a cancellation and I was booked for a bilateral inguinal her­niorrhaphy in 5 days. 

I had waited a fair amount of time for the procedure and did not want to be recovering during the summer, so I rearranged my schedule and remembered how much it itched the last time I had a prep for the same (unilateral) surgery 25 years ago. 

I also started to think about the oft-repeated editorial theme of the doctor as a patient and how many times various editors have written about their experience as a patient and basically how different it is when you’re the one on the receiving end of a really sharp knife. 

The surgery took place 13 days ago and although I was looking for something negative to rant about, everything went smoothly and I was left without anything contentious or negative to shout about. The only difference from the pre-op prep from 25 years ago was the opportunity to do it myself, and although I am now experiencing the same amount of itching, the process of mechanical self-depilation was much less embarrassing. 

The only downside to the surgery was the expected impressive amount of bruising and swelling on the recurrent side secondary to the extensive amount of sharp dissection necessary. However, gravity has an interesting roll to play in where all that tissue fluid goes, and up until 24 hours ago after studying my southern regions in the mirror it was clear that I would probably get a call back if I decided to audition for a starring role in the adult film industry. 

I have been back to work for about seven days with only minor physical impairment, and I keep trying to come to terms with where the negatives are that I had planned to be writing about. Everyone, in fact was great: the nursing staff, the anesthetist, and even the surgeon were not only friendly but also helpful. 

Nobody was dismissive and the professional staff universally treated me like a real patient. God, how boring is all this? The system worked really well, I was well cared for, and for the life of me I can’t find one single negative in the whole experience. 

I think I should have stuck with my original intention to discuss the importance of Thai caddies to overall personal health planning. Maybe next month.

—JAW