I first broke the news about this back in this post, so I’m finally getting around to going through the whole saga. Just to get this out up front, I’m fine and I was never in any real danger – so there’s no REAL drama involved here. But there was quite a bit of artificial drama created by yours truly, who generally acts like a little girl when it comes to certain things. Going under the knife is one of those things.

So, I found out about my inguinal hernia at my new hire physical 4 years ago. It didn’t come as a great surprise, seeing as how I’m an idiot that doesn’t lift with his bad knees and used to sell and deliver heavy duty truck and trailer parts. At the time, the doc told me about it and told me that it wouldn’t be a problem unless it got bigger. His suggestion was to wait until it bothered me before having surgery. Sounded like a good idea to me, since surgery implies expensive stuff – insurance or not.

Well, I’m not really sure how I managed to exacerbate the problem but one morning in July I did. REALLY did. I just woke up early one morning with the feeling that my nuts were being run through a wringer. For those of you keeping score at home, this is not one of the more pleasurable things in life. On closer inspection, I discovered a bulge about the size of an extra large egg on the left side of my groin. Oh, so that’s what the problem is……

I managed to hobble my way into work and got an appointment for the doc later that morning. And “hobbled” is the right word. I was literally taking very small steps while walking around bow-legged in an effort not to pinch or squeeze the “egg” in my crotch. Not that it really helped because I couldn’t determine rhyme or reason or pattern or logic in what set the pain-o-meter off. I could move the exact same way and one time it was fine and the next time brought back the ol’ nut wringer.

So I get to the doc’s office and the receptionist tells me that I’ll have to see his PA (Physician’s Assistant) because the doc got hung up out of the office. Apparently, the look of abject pain didn’t answer her question about whether or not that would be okay. I told her that I’d let the janitor look at it if he could give me a surgical consult and some pain meds. So they show me back into the exam room and the PA comes in. She tells me, again, that if I’m not comfortable with a woman examining me that the doc is now on his way back. I repeat the comment about the janitor, to which she replies that I look like I’m in pain. Ya think???

Well, she takes her look and gives me the facial equivalent of, “Holy shit – look at that!” The next thing she asks is what I want for the pain. Nice, the doc is giving me a blank check on the pharmacy. Unfortunately, they can’t get me in for a consult with the surgeon until the next day so I can’t get anything really good – I still have to drive and function and stuff. What she gave me (and I can’t remember the name of the stuff for the life of me) was super-duper Tylenol. It was like 1500mg of time-release acetaminophen. Unfortunately, this made the pain tolerable but did nothing to stop it.

Next day comes along and I get to meet the surgeon finally. Cool – I’m expecting to be on the table by Friday (it was a Tuesday, btw), Monday at the latest. The surgeon takes a look, has me cough, pokes and prods and such and shocks the hell out of me. He says that he can fix the hernia on the right side while he’s in there fixing the left side. What hernia on the right side??? Sure enough, he has me do the cough test on myself and there is one – small, but there. Then he informs me that he’ll put in a couple of extra stitches on the way out of my belly button to fix the umbilical hernia I also have. What??? Another one I don’t know about? Shit, this is getting worse as we go along. By the way, I also have one above my belly button that I’ve had for at least 10 years. We can’t fix that one on this run, though. Super…..

Now for the next bit of good news – he can’t get me on the schedule for 2 weeks! Not next Monday, but the NEXT Monday. And what can he prescribe for pain that won’t turn me into a zombie? More of the same stuff I’m on now. Awesome. Well, I guess this is what I get for never going to the doctor. So I wait. And worry. And generally act like a little girl.

See, I’ve never been knocked out for the purposes of improving my health. Granted, I’ve been knocked out before and drank myself into a coma more times than is reasonable or healthy, but I’ve never been put to sleep. Just the phrase itself reminds me of euthanasia, and I’m not quite ready for that yet. So, my healthy skepticism of the medical profession in general coupled with my great distaste (I prefer “distaste” over “fear”) of the unknown and the fact that I know I’m going to be completely out of control of my fate and that I’m going to feel markedly worse when I wake up, you get a thoroughly freaked out Bill. Good times. I even went so far as to update my will and create a living will, which I’m told is standard practice and common sense but strikes me as a bit overly-dramatic.

I had my pre-surgical testing and stuff the Friday before at the hospital. I was not pleased about several things coming from this. First, they wanted my blood – well, a vial. After the Navy used me as a pincushion/dart board for all those years I got used to needles. I can handle shots, but feeling my life force leaving my body through a needle is something different. I almost always get lightheaded and have occasionally passed out. For the record, I did not pass out this time. The second thing that annoyed me was that the hospital was running NetWare for Windows. Great, I can’t even get a medical facility that’s left the 20th Century. Thirdly, they gave me the “Do Nots” list for the day before the surgery.

Included in this was Do Not take your meds for 2 days prior to the surgery because it had something to do with conflicts with the anesthesia or bleeding or something. Also, Do Not have anything to eat or drink after midnight the night before. Okay, they’re checking me in at 0800. Not great, but I can live that long I guess. By the way, Do Not have any nicotine after that stroke of 12 either. Look, I have to get up at 0630 to get everything situated to get to the hospital on time. You’re telling me that you want a freaked out Jarhead coming in for surgery and you’re going to allow him not food, nor coffee, nor nicotine for 8 hours? And you think this is a good idea? Right….

Well, I do almost all of this. I had some water about 0200 and a cigarette about 0300. I don’t think this will affect the success of the surgery and will probably spare a few people my wrath. Plus, they tell me that once I wake up I have to piss before they’ll let me go home. So I was trying to stay hydrated as much as possible because I was dead set on this being an outpatient procedure.

Everything was pretty cool at the hospital, though. They took me right back and got me dressed out. I never felt the nurse stick me for the IV. The coolest thing I remember is that the doc had prescribed a heartburn med through the IV and while the nurse was giving it she told me that I might get a metallic taste in the back of my mouth. As soon as she said this, I got the taste. This IV thing is some cool shit! What else can they deliver this way?? Nothing else that I remember.

They gave me Versed for my happy dose. I remember signing the consent form and I remember the anesthesiologist starting what I have learned is called an “IV push.” My next memory was from the operating room. According to Whit and her brother, who is an OR tech at the hospital, when the doc came in I tried to introduce him to Whit. Reportedly, the conversation went something like, “Hey doc! This is my,,,my,,,ummm,,,Fuck it.” It is also alleged that I said my nose itched and my attempt to scratch it resulted in me poking myself in the eye on the other side of my head. Repeatedly, without success. Since I don’t remember this, I question the veracity and refuse to take responsibility for anything else I said or did while under the influence.

I remember being in the Operating Room and I recall that they had folded the wings of the tables out so that I looked like they were about to crucify me (or had already). Had I not been so completely stoned I probably would have freaked the fuck out. I also remember them putting the warmest, most snuggliest towels ever all over me. Then somebody asked me if I was going to sleep and I replied that I was almost there. She told me to take a deep breath from the “oxygen mask” she had. My last conscious thought was that I couldn’t exhale into the thing because of the pressure.

When I came to in recovery, the first thing I did was look over at the anesthesiologist and say to her, “You tricked me.” She smiled at me and got my nurse. The nurse started checking vitals and such when the urge hit me. I asked her for a urinal, to which she responded that she’d get one in just a second. I told her that I was about to have an accident and that she should hurry. She handed me one of those blue plastic pee jugs and as she walked to the door said that she’d give me some privacy for a few minutes. Before she got the door open, I was done. I was surprised how dehydrated I was. For all the urge of my bladder feeling like it was going to burst, I squeezed out maybe an ounce of what looked like sweet tea. Whatever, I checked the box – let me out of here.

By the time the doc came back by, the nurse had rounded up Whit and everybody else had been by to check me out. I was waiting on him to come by and give me his blessing to leave. Oh, and drugs too. And boy, did he! He tells me that I’ll be in excruciating pain for a week and then I’ll feel better gradually. Because he’s such a swell guy, he gave me 30 of the big Lortab with a refill! And the refill is good for a year, for some reason. Well, whatever – let me out of here. So I manage to get dressed with minimal difficulties and Whit goes to get her truck to take me home.

This little candy striper offered me a wheelchair ride, which I refused on the grounds that I managed to dress myself without pain, thus I could make it to the front door on my own. My nurse then explained to me that the reason I had no pain was because I was feeling no pain at all because I was still stoned out of my gourd. While she was explaining this to me, I noticed that she got kind of blurry and then briefly cloned herself before my eyes. I took this as a sign that I should probably not try the whole walking thing at this moment.

So I got home without further incident. Let me preface the rest of this by saying that I rarely get sick. Sure, I get the sniffles and allergies and such, but if I don’t make it to work I’m simply using these symptoms as a crutch or an excuse to sleep in. The last time I was actually, honestly, really too sick to go in was about 4 years ago when I had walking pneumonia. Hand in hand, when I’m really sick I’m not such a Tough Guy. More accurately, I’m pitiful. So when we walk in the house I plop my ass down on the couch while Whit makes supper and whatnot.

When chow is ready and she tries to bring me a bowl on the couch, I promptly assert my manhood and walk (hobble) to the table and eat. Then I hobble back to the couch and assume the position again. Before being drugged, I made the rational decision to sleep on the couch for a couple of days rather than try to negotiate the stairs to the master bedroom by myself because Whit had the night shift for the 3 days following my surgery. This proved to be prophetic.

….go without shoes. That’s how it works, right? Brought about by a profound admiration of the great, half-white hope I’ve started buying into this whole “Social Networking” thing. No, not MySpace. I’m not sure how to describe the tapioca abortion that MySpace has become. Honestly, how did the “Digital Generation” get the idea in their empty little heads that throwing as much shit as humanly possible on to a single page qualifies as having an online presence. I’ve been unfortunate enough to come across some MySpace pages that almost gave me a seizure.

No, think of MySpace as the annoying, 10-year-old little sister. I’m talking about the grown up version of Social Networking, Facebook. I’m enjoying me some Facebook. And it’s adopted cousin (step-cousin?) Twitter. I’m digging these for a few reasons, most of which can be found rooted in laziness I guess. Most of the posts on this site are either sports related or very long and grammatically correct and all that jazz. The aforementioned cousins let me get away from all that and, well, interact with people.

First of all, I got into the whole SN business as part of my job. I wanted to A) verify that I could get to it when I needed to and, most importantly, B) block most of the retards on my network from goofing off there. So I’ve had these profiles for a couple of years and haven’t done much with any of them. Out of the blue, I get pinged by this chick I went to school with. That snowballed into me getting hit up by several others (most of whom I never would have guessed knew how to get on the internet), which made me wonder how many others I could track down. A lot. A LOT. I’ve found AT LEAST 80 people I’ve known throughout the years that I haven’t kept in touch with. I’m terribly remiss in correspondence and this just makes it oh so easy. For example, the dude who split my head open with one well-placed elbow. Family, lots of folks I went school with, old Jarheads, etc. Good times.

Second, it’s so informal. I can easily drop something on somebody’s wall and be done with it. There’s no formatting or organizing an email, because this is the internet’s way of running into somebody on the street. And it’s a good way to send a broadcast message to everybody without having to address it to them. So no more worrying about including everybody’s email (and getting on my Dad’s SPAMTO: list) or multiple emails to everybody leaving out whatever you don’t want them to know. If I want to broadcast it, it’s on my board; it’s not my fault you didn’t read it.

Thirdly, most importantly I think, is the mobility of it all. I made myself a Twitter account eons ago and even toyed with coding a Flash app that could sit on my desktop, just so I could tweet at will. Then I saw that a buddy of mine updated his status via Twitter and I thought that was a swell idea. Then I really got to thinking about how nice it would be if I could just do all of this from my Crackberry. Lo and behold, it worked! They make mobile apps for EVERYTHING nowadays. How sweet is that? So, while I was waiting for the family-types to show up (late) for dinner, I was able to catch up with the Facebook messages and Tweet my displeasure with the general tardiness of women. NICE!!!!

So, the site will stay around and might even get updated for awhile if I can find the time away from my 2 new shiny vices online, and if there’s anything relevant for me to say that won’t fit on my wall…. And, provided that the site is dependable. I don’t want to think about how much time I spent just trying to get this new post page open. Note to self: think about reliable hosting sometime……

I finally get my head and ass wired together and the server is acting up…. I’m ready to break into the fun that are hernias, something about UGA round ball and (because I try to to BMWC too much with out a solution) a viable BCS solution. IF GoDaddy can bounce the server in the next few hours, I can get started tonight. Maybe

All I’ve been reading lately is speculation about what the off-season holds for Georgia’s football program and what Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno are going to do. First, I think it’s premature to start talking about this – there’s still a bowl game to play and a Javon Ringer to embarrass One Scheme Willie on New Year’s Day (Sadly, it doesn’t look like I’ll be making the trip this year – damned economy). Second, I really don’t think we’ll be spared another season of OSW roaming the sidelines. Third, it’s all speculation at this point as to what MS and KM are going to do. I doubt they even know yet. Fourth, we’re not going to discuss recruits because I doubt you’re going to see any impact freshmen coming on the field next season. But that being said, I’ll run my suck about it anyway….

First, I can’t believe that we got a bid to the Capital One Bowl. That can only be attributed to Bama playing a good enough SEC Championship to receive a bid to the Sugar. A blowout by either team there and we’re playing in the Cotton or some other third-tier junk bowl. Send Bama a Thank You card, Dawgs. I haven’t broken down the Spartans yet, but I do know this – I’m terrified of what Javon Ringer might do to the defense that (didn’t) show up against Bama, UF and Tech. I’m not going to make another promise that I’ll break and tell you I’m going to give you a bowl breakdown before game time. I’ll try, but that’s all I have to say about that for now.

I think that Coach will have his way and get to keep Martinez for another season. But I believe there will be mass conditions attached. Like learning to anticipate and make adjustments. And not heading the biggest embarrassment to call itself a Georgia defense EVER. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they shouldn’t can him, but demote him and keep him as secondary coach or something. That’s like the commanding general firing a battalion commander but keeping him as the battalion’s executive officer. He’d have absolutely no respect from anyone, least of all the fans. Having said that, try – as hard as possible – to arrange for this guy to get a head coaching job somewhere. Preferably someone on our schedule….. It’s unconscionable for us to have the top rusher and passer in the conference and lose 3 shootouts like that. Let’s just all hold our breath, cross our fingers and hope for the best. And if anyone knows someone who’s a big booster at a school looking for a new head coach, put in a good word for Willie.

Now, the hot question is whether Stafford and Moreno are coming back. First, I’ve heard that Moreno is very serious about his education and because of that he’ll be returning. If that’s the case, great – we’ll have him for at least one more year. But think about it – how many players have gone out early for the draft and finished their degree later? There’s a lot of money riding on this. There is talk of a rookie salary cap, like in the NBA, coming to an NFL near you next year. Would he (can he) pass on that kind of money? Me, being poor and all, says that 10 mil is as good as 40 mil. But there’s another saying that, “a million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

Same thing goes for Stafford. The guy is looking at top 5, maybe even number 1 money. He doesn’t want to be the next Matt Leinart (he lost at least 5 spots in the draft by staying in another year). But Stafford has one neither a Heisman nor a NC ring, as Leinart had when he made his decision to stay. And I think he’ll wait to see what some of these other guys are going to do. The Junior Class of college QBs is strong right now, but how many of them will be around next year? How many will he compete with not only on Saturdays, but on Draft Day? He’ll be a late entry, if at all, I think.

I’d like to think that these two fine young men will look at each other and say, “You know, let’s come back behind an experienced, healthy O line and run amok next year. Let’s finish what we started.” That’d be swell, gents. But, I also don’t worry too much if one or either of them go. If I had to choose one to lose, it’d be Knowshon. Yes, I said Knowshon. Samuel will be great if he can hold on to the ball and think a little more. That comes with experience. King will be great if he can get a killer instinct and not think so much. That can be taught. And there’s a host of great backs waiting in the wings to become the NEXT Knowshon.

Matt Stafford has a set of tools in his bag that you can’t teach. As great of a backup as I think Joe Cox is, he just isn’t physically able to make some of the throws and plays that Stafford can. David Greene won more games than any QB in college, even the great Peyton Manning. Who’s got the MVP, Super Bowl ring, and ginormous contract? The guy who’s a physical freak of nature at QB, that’s who. (hint: he wore Orange in college) Besides that, Mike Bobo has shown his love for the pass and the offense has shown great proficiency throwing the ball this season. Even without MoMass, AJ and company will strike terror into the hearts of SEC defenses next year. Add a stud like Stafford delivering the laser beams and you can use the pass to set up the run.

But seriously guys, nobody could really blame you for going pro and chasing the dollars. But you’d be Dooley-esque if you stayed and won a championship next year. Hell, you’d both be solid Heisman contenders and winning that would make you both Herschel-esque (whether you win it or not).

The recruits coming in are really not that important to me. Why? Because we (hopefully) won’t have that many holes to fill next year. Maybe that can be the start of a trend – reloading with RS Sophomores and Juniors rather than starting 4 Freshmen on the O line every 4 years. You can blame the first one on Donnan, this year falls squarely on the current staff. And I just don’t see an AJ or Rennie Curran (i.e., an impact Freshman) coming in this year. The prizes of the class are both QBs and Logan Gray is still a great talent waiting in the wings. Both of those boys will probably redshirt if Stafford comes back. And that’s good, because I’m tired of relying on Freshmen to win championships. The first time it worked, we got lucky and had enough Seniors to overcome them (Coach’s first SEC Championship). This year, it was painfully obvious that talent couldn’t overcome experience AND talent on the other side of the ball.

So, that’s the initial take of a few things I had to get off of my brain. I will do my best to get you guys my breakdown and predictions of the C1 bowl BEFORE kickoff, but again I make no promises. You wouldn’t believe the shit I’m doing at work, especially in a down economy. Maybe I’ll have time to BMWC about that later, too.

WTF WordPress? Actually, it’s probably the server. I already typed this stuff in and it puked the post. Anyway, I wasn’t gonna bother with anything today because I’m laid up on the couch with a dose of the crud, along with Whit and the Heathen. But this is turning out to be one hell of a game so I’m going to pick this up midway through the second quarter and do my best.