Update 4/20/12
First off, my dad's surgery went well thank God for that. He was supposed to be in surgery for 1 hour and it took 2.5 hours. They fused his C7/T1 (neck to spine) and he's already had two others fused together in the past in his neck. They had to move his windpipe, artery, and other things over to do the surgery and then push them back into place. He's very sore but did get to go home Wednesday afternoon.
I was at the hospital so long Tuesday I did not workout. Wednesday I went hard - 1 hour on elliptical plus DDPYoga. About an hour after my workout I stood up to go get a drink in my kitchen and I had this hot/sharp burning pain coming from just right of my belly button. My umbilical hernia (which I've had for over 2 years now) was popped out and really throbbing. It hurts from time to time but most of the time it's tolerable - even working out. I was in pretty intense pain for about an hour before it let up I honestly thought it was becoming strangulated and I was going to have to go to the ER. It finally let up and I was able to go to bed. Thursday it felt a little sore but mostly ok so I done my DDPYoga when I got home with no pain. Within 5 minutes after hitting the elliptical that throbbing/burning pain came back once again. I stopped immediately and went and sat down and it eased up within 10 minutes. I called my specialty doctor (can't remember the exact term for her) this morning and she advised that I likely have torn the hernia a bit worse with my vigorous exercising lately. She said that she really needed to examine me next week to find out for sure. I talked about my pain and she was pretty concerned. She is advising me to be "very, very careful" exercising until I see her. She doesn't want me to get in a position where I strangulate an intestine and have to have emergency surgery. She's of the opinion that I may have to have the surgery sooner rather than later.
After saying that I'm "personally" of the opinion I've just strained it a little too hard lately and I just need to take a few days off and see if the pain subsides again. I've been living with this for two years and the more weight I lose the better it feels all around. I've read many back and forth stories on the effectiveness of umbilical hernia surgery. Some people say if you can deal with it you can live with one forever as long as you don't tear it worse. Others say that their stomach muscles come back stronger after the repair surgery is done. All I know is that:
1. I definitely don't want to strangulate this stupid thing and risk dying
2. On the flipside, I don't want to have the surgery and it not help out and I tear it back open by regular exercise.
I will see what the doctor says but it's definitely disappointing. MAYBE if I take a couple of days off the hernia will go back in a bit and I won't have the pain working out again for awhile. There's a possibility I just lifted something wrong to hurt it this time and the hernia needs a couple of days to sink back in. I just don't want to be setback on my weight loss by having a surgery, being laid up a week or two, then not able to exercise for some time.
I really tried to amp it back up this week - I've ate really clean for the most part and have worked out as time permitted. I may try the elliptical again tonight at the house and see if I can go "light" on it and hope the pain stays away. Believe me, if I feel that sharp pain I will stop immediately. Dying would kind of defeat the purpose of healthy living.
I'll give an update tomorrow on the official weekly weight and how I'm feeling. I'm crossing my fingers that I just strained the hernia a little and didn't actually do something to make it worse that will require the surgery I don't want to have to go through.
Thanks to everybody that follows along with me.