‘I’m not afraid of dying,’ my father once said, well before his drawn-out demise, ‘as long as I don’t feel pain.’ This quote raised a laugh among the WWII vets at his funeral during the speech I gave (to my mother’s dismay: she feared I’d embarrass her). In fact, my father had undergone months of agony before dying at 89 after a heart attack. Paramedics had saved him at least twice because my mother preferred a helpless, pain-racked shell (‘I wish I was dead,’ he’d said and she’d shushed him) to the prospect of facing loss and, ultimately, herself.

My mother saw doctors as saviours. I don’t. A spinal op at 17 put me off Western medicine: it didn’t fulfil its promise. Left with chronic pain and restrictions, I turned to alternatives; tuned in to my body. So last month, in pre-op prep with a nurse named Karma, I hoped I’d burned some off since that earlier surgery. Post-op pain was on the cards, but I didn’t feel psyched for the Bardo yet. And isn’t repeat hospitalisation a risk on par with Russian roulette?

Sorting out my father’s mess 19 years ago in the wake of his death, I was stunned by the array of pill bottles and packets: 25 different medications. Subsidised, yet Big Pharma was profiting nicely from his suffering. Grateful to a wife too jealous to share the role of full-time nurse, let alone allow him the death he yearned for, he lingered amid comorbidities. He’d always had a high pain threshold, while she’d moan and whine over minor discomfort. I don’t relate to his stoic heroics. Yet I’m no princess either: with a major op needed I chose the more painful of two procedures because a top surgeon, not a novice, would have to do it. So sue me.

How do you find a surgeon without a referral? The way you find a plumber or a removalist: do a local Google search then read reviews. And it’s still hit and miss. That’s the beauty of the public system: private patients pay for the privilege (or fantasy) of free will. Fate dictates to public patients. My GP urged me to go private. Too expensive. I asked for a referral to public. Too hard: unfamiliar department. Another GP, though, faxed a referral on the spot. Too easy.

The surgeon impressed me at our one-off consultation. His fingers could detect a minuscule, second hernia under my skin, so far only visible on the ultrasound, unlike the first. He spoke succinctly. Drew diagrams. Scrawled illegibly. Stressed his reputation (for which, kudos – no elephant in the room). Neither too young nor too old, he looked clear-eyed. Sober. I filled out and signed forms, then went home and read all his Google reviews.

In 2007 I’d had finger surgery – performed by a newbie, I learned later; the public system doubles as a training ground – and that was my last stint of post-op pain. My GP had set my puffy left pinkie after it broke (headbutted by a hurtling neurodivergent child), and the swelling took nearly two weeks to subside enough to reveal that the bone above the break was rotated. It stuck out on a hazardous angle. The op to realign and put pins in it caused more pain than the injury, but I declined analgesics and the next morning began hourly exercises (guided by an outpatients physio): intense, but vital to regain full dexterity.

And since then I’d had frequent back pain, a fractured knee, and a battering from a dangerous shore break that cracks more spines than any other in Oz. Yet pain meds never beckoned; I distrust drugs, especially legal (deadening) ones. So when I saw the surgeon assigned to fix my hernias, I mentioned my analgesia hesitance. Painkillers facilitate healing, he explained; I’d need to ‘mobilise’ (a military term?), breathe deeply and, he warned, to ward off pain (it would hijack the brain?) because then, he said, I’d need opioids – much less safe. He allowed my choice not to take antibiotics, but issued a stern disclaimer.

That left Nurofen and Panadol. How bad could meds available from the pharmacy aisle at Woolies be? I consulted the post-op handout and commenced the regimen. Not that I felt much pain. Presumably the drugs administered during the op had yet to wear off. Nor did I feel much pain the next day. My short-term memory seemed somewhat patchy, but hey, anaesthesia hangover? And then, as I was about to ‘mobilise’ (sunset stroll), stupor descended. Forget sitting upright, let alone standing. I lay down under the doona and surrendered. But I stayed trapped in limbo: able to think yet not productively and unable to fall asleep. Unimpressed, I halved Nurofen intake and left longer intervals between. Which freed me to write (if not to focus). With lucidity, though, came the sudden incapacitating pain I’d been meant to prevent. Chastened, I resumed Nurofen as directed. But instead of rewarding my renewed loyalty, it gave me yet more headaches, zapped my concentration, numbed my legs, and caused fluid retention that put strain on the wounds. I emailed the doc, who replied: ‘Yes I would stop neurofen [sic] and just take panadol if required’. Required for what? If just to confirm it didn’t work, I took one last dose – and woke up dizzy in the morning. Still dizzy in the afternoon, I googled ‘Panadol side effects’. First on the list was ‘dizziness’, but I had others, such as blurred vision.

Elective surgery. What was I thinking? I had to wonder on post-op day nine when, at 4 a.m., I found a bulge as big as a Lebanese cucumber straining against the larger of my two surgical wounds. Not there an hour earlier, it now dwarfed the original hernia. Had the stitches ruptured? Were my intestines falling out? My partner offered to take me to Emergency. I imagined waiting round in mortal dread and a mask all day to undergo another op performed by a random registrar… Catastrophising. I flipped through the post-op handouts. ‘Feel free to call me on my mobile,’ I read at the bottom of my surgeon’s report. Nothing about business hours. Either his mobile would be switched off or I’d have a chance to test the truth of his exclusively five-star Google rating (46 reviews at last count). I didn’t need ‘wonderful and charismatic’, but if he cared to answer at 4:10 a.m., I hoped he might prove ‘a thorough gentleman’.

To my shock, he responded promptly and sounded alert, if not ‘a bit like an old friend you haven’t seen in years’. (No way would he have had time to take my call during the day. Should I feel guilt or relief?) It could be fluid, he said when I’d described the sudden extrusion. The pain would be worse if the hernia had recurred, but he’d try to see me that week. I said we had a follow-up the next day. His turn to feel relief. He said I should be okay until then. Five stars for being ‘extremely nice’.

At the clinic, perhaps predictably, an intern saw me instead. She looked adolescent and lacked all prior knowledge of my case, but said the surgeon would see me after they’d conferred. I showed her the bulge – so big that flexing the hip below it or bending over caused painful pressure – yet its size didn’t surprise her. Seems seromas are common. So some patients don’t have a ‘seamless experience’. Why don’t the handouts let on? It would subside within days, she assured me, or weeks. And we discussed post-op pain, which segued into the topic of meds. ‘They work better if you take them regularly,’ she said. Like vitamins? Did she think the problem was mine, those drugs work fine, and I just failed to follow instructions? That one-size-fits-all approach proved catastrophic under Covid. Not that this cheery child would have a clue. She left the room twice to relay her version of my words to the surgeon. And returned to say he didn’t need to see me. Nor did I need to book a further follow-up. Apparently, they were impressed with how fast my pain had gone away. Most patients, she said, need meds for two weeks. Yeah? That’s not what the handouts say.