It’s two weeks today since I have surgery to repair a bi-lateral hernia. I noticed a bulge in my groin three weeks ago and decided that I should consult my doctor as I am heading off to Cambodia and Laos in another four weeks. If I had been travelling to Europe or the USA I could have had surgery there if needed but I didn’t want to take the risk of potentially needing surgery in a third-world country.
Luckily my GP was able to find a surgeon who could fit me in quickly so I saw him at 8.30 one morning an was undergoing surgery at 1.30 that afternoon. My stay in hospital was only overnight and I have spent the last two weeks feeling a bit sore and sorry for myself. I saw the surgeon for a follow up visit today and he told me that everything was OK and I can start to get back to doing normal things. I won’t be able to lift anything heavier than 5kgs for the next six weeks. Fortunately I travel lightly and if someone can lift my bag for the first few days, I am looking forward to seeing another new part of the world.
As a rather active person, I have found life over the last two weeks to be very boring. I have not been able to drive up until now and I was a little too sore from the surgery to do too much. Just sitting around is not much fun but it has helped me learn that I will need to develop some more passive interests for the days when I am old and feeble. Perhaps I could smell the roses (though there would need to be a lot of them), or maybe I could develop an interest in the TV shopping channels. Perhaps I could fill in my time ordering stuff online and then wait for the delivery man to come.
One of the good things that happened was a visit from Erkio Adachi. Eriko is our son David’s Japanese host sister from his time in Japan as an exchange student. She is a lovely girl and married with three very active young boys. Recently she and her family have been living in China as her husband was transferred there by his company, Toyota. She will be soon returning to Japan being tired of the pollution in China and some of the Chinse people’s dislike of the Japanese. We have keep a close relationship with Eriko over the years and I feel somewhat as though she is my Japanese daughter. I must say that compared to our rather gentele grand daughters, her boys take some getting used to!
I am very tired of the hot dry wether that we having been having. Not feeling well, three days in a row over 41C have been quite trying. We have had just a few drops of rain for the entire year so far and our water tanks for garden are getting empty. Bush fires to our north have resulted in heavy smoke haze and our electricity usage has been high with constantly running air conditioners. (I don’t think that I would still like to swap places with Eriko in China). I look at the TV news and see floods in London and extreme cold in the USA. On occasions I would gladly have swapped!
