Good, Old-Fashioned Pierce Logic

About two months ago, my dad started complaining about a pain on his side. My mom, brother, and I all said, "You should go get that checked. It could be a hernia." My dad, being the beacon of logic and reason that he is, replied to each of us, "I don't want to go to the doctor. They might find something." So he didn't go to the doctor. After two months, we had all basically forgotten about this.

Last Tuesday evening, I got a call from my mother. Apparently, my dad was in excruciating pain, and they were thinking about going to the emergency room. They thought he might have appendicitis. Since I happen to be an expert at diagnosing via the Internet, I looked up his symptoms, decided that, yes, it could in fact be appendicitis, and told them to get on the road. This is how my family makes decisions. I know. We need therapy.

While they were on the hour-long drive to the emergency room, I set at home worrying. BJ was busy with church stuff that night, so I was left alone with my neurotic brain to contemplate all the horrible things besides appendicitis that it could be. After 20 anxiety filled minutes, I decided it was time to Google. I looked up every type of cancer or horrible disease that might effect that area. In a moment of frantic anxiety, I even clicked on a link for symptoms of cervical cancer before I remembered that Dad doesn't have one of those.

Finally, they arrived, saw a doctor, and found out that it was what we had told dad he might have two months ago: he had a hernia. The doctor sent him home with pain medication, orders to take it easy, and an appointment for a week later to prepare for surgery.

Flash forward to Friday. Dad seemed to be doing okay the whole day until about 5:00 when another rash of horrific pain started. My brother happened to be home, so he started questioning Dad on the details of his day. Slowly, tidbits of information about Dad's work day started flowing out, like how Dad had lifted three 5-gallon containers of laundry detergent. And five extremely heavy boxes of diapers. And a recliner. Mom and Bro thought it might be time to go to the emergency room again. Dad thought he just needed to "work it out." That's right. He needed to "work out" a hernia. Eventually, saner heads prevailed, and they went to the emergency room.

To make a long story short, it turned out he had a very serious hernia, one that had been allowed to exist for far too long, and so they did surgery Saturday evening. Recovery from this sort of surgery is excruciating, so Dad is in a lot of pain right now. Thankfully, the pain is keeping him from doing anything crazy, like lifting recliners. But I hate thinking about him being in pain. Despite his total lack of rationality, he is really quite lovable.

In all seriousness, do please say a prayer for his recovery. He is (obviously) not a man used to laying on his back, so this is difficult for him on multiple levels.