[Zeke]

SoCal, interesting that you bring this up. Mine is scheduled for Jan 9. which is a Fri. I tried for the 2nd, but the dr. is not working that long weekend. I had this done in '84 the old fashioned way and was out of work about a month. But I do heavy work. Even then, I came back slowly. It was two years before I could honestly say that I couldn't tell anything had been done.

I don't know yet which technique my dr. is going to use, but I know he mentioned the mesh. I didn't have the mesh on the other side and have have no problems since. I attribute the current injury to age and workingon and under cars more than the carpentry work I do. Who knows? For some, this happens at a desk job. the last surgeon said I had very very strong abdominal muscles and I'm pretty much the same today. So, that doesn't apparently mean a damn thing.

What pissess me off no end is that I'm going to miss a couple month's worth of track days. This summer I seized the motor and haven't finished the rebuilding yet. Between the work of installing a motor and the job of loading and unloading a car from a trailer (heavy ramps and crawling around tieing the caar down), I will be probably end up being out of the racecar for almost a year.

Edit: I forgot; this is funny (to me). The surgeon in '84 gave me choice of going under or staying awake with a local anesthetic. A big local, I guess. He says that if I do the local and stay awake, I will have less of a 'hang over' the next day. So, I say do it awake and he assures me if I don't like it, they'll drop me into unconciousness in an instant. I go through the whole thing awake, him down there yanking away and me chatiing up the anethesiologist who happens to be a good looking blonde gal.

I felt like I'd been "ate by a wolf and ***** over a cliff" the next day. No more awake for me. Doesn't help.