A major life event that made me feel less-than-strong

I'll be back and stronger than ever before you know it

So, it's been an interesting last few weeks. Not great, or spectacular, but definitely interesting.

On the weekend of April 19-20, I awoke on Saturday morning with a distended abdomen and massive bloating pain in the upper part of my digestive system. I assumed it was gas, and acted accordingly. I drank water, took my dog for a nice, long walk and worked out gently.

It was supposed to clear and I was supposed to feel better.

I did not. I spent Sunday in bed and watched Game 1 of the Canadiens' playoff series with the Tampa Bay Lightning from the bed. Monday came and went and for a minute or two on the Monday, I felt OK. I needed a heat pack on my stomach in order to fall asleep, however, and hoped that would be the end of it.

If you've been paying attention so far, you can probably assume it was decidedly NOT the end of it.

On the Tuesday, I woke up in so much pain I gave in and went to the hospital. I got myself to the ER at the Glen Yards MUHC, where they immediately took me in and administered an EKG to make sure it wasn't a heart attack masquerading as indigestion.

Do you remember the Alien movies, where the Alien pops out of peoples' abdomens in order to come to life? That's how my stomach felt. Like the Alien was coming out and right out of my abdomen. Not. Fun.

So, no heart issues. At least there was a bright side, right?

On the down side, I was admitted into the hospital after about 20 hours in the ER, where I rested comfortably until they sent me upstairs to the waiting-for-surgery floor at 2:20 a.m. on Wednesday. I was told my gallbladder was massively beset by scar tissue and it was attacking me from the inside out. I was told that I would be undergoing surgery to remove it just as soon as a spot in the operating room was available.

Here's the problem. It didn't come available during the next 36 hours as I writhed in pain in my otherwise lovely hospital room. Inexplicably, the painkillers they gave me in the ER were also somehow not available to me after I was admitted, ostensibly because I wasn't as closely supervised by staff. Instead, I was given some sort of placebo, which of course, did nothing for me, as the hours ticked off. Eventually -- on that Wednesday, still -- I was told they would operate at 10 p.m. That hour came and went, and I wasn't advised that they wouldn't actually be operating at all that night, and with no painkillers available to me, I simply lay writing in pain until I fell into a fitful slumber around 4 a.m. on Thursday morning. I was awoken by a nurse and doctors letting me know I was still on the list for surgery and that I would get in and be operated on shortly. That was...not true. At all.

Eventually, that same nurse came into my room around noon and informed me they would be transferring me to Montreal General Hospital because they had vacancies in their OR. I was told I would be transferred by ambulance or by Medicar, but no such transport materialized.

At one point, I received two calls from the surgeon herself, asking me where I was and when I'd arrive at Montreal General, despite no transport forthcoming from the hospital. Well, I thought, 'if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.'

So, I packed my stuff and hitched a ride over to Montreal General on my own, traipsing through the main area of the hospital to the front door in my hospital gown and a pair of shorts. After many, many road closures (because why not? The snow is gone. Time for roadwork!), I got admitted to a room at Montreal General and given painkillers after begging for such drugs for the better part of 36 hours. Thirty-six HOURS. My God.

After sleeping a little at Montreal General, they told me I would be going in for surgery between 6 and 9 p.m. on Thursday night. It was nice to hear they would operate, but it would happen during the first round of the NFL Draft, which I had hoped to follow on my phone with my son on FaceTime, as that event is an annual time for us to celebrate our collective love of football.

Oh, well.

So, around 7:30 p.m., they came for me and gave me a little surgical shower cap and wheeled me down to the OR, where I was given sweet, sweet general anesthesia and went under as they performed a laproscopic cholecystectomy, which entailed cutting FIVE holes in my torso and inserting surgical cameras in my abdomen and they removed my gallbladder completely.

The first words out of my mouth in the recovery room was 'who did the Bears draft?' to the attending nurse, who looked at me funny and looked up the information on his phone.

I found out later in the recovery room that hospital staff had alerted my partner that I was out of surgery -- and that they had found "a considerable' amount of scar tissue on my gallbladder and that it should have been bothering me for a while -- and I slept. I slept and slept and slept some more.

I must say that my loved ones really came through for me in the hours and days following my surgery as I was relegated to bed for the better part of the next five days, getting up only to sit at my computer and do work. I am so very lucky to be blessed in so many ways.

Since then, I've learned to accept that I have to slow down for a little while, and re-learn how to eat. Digestion has been a challenge, to say the least, and I have spent way too much time on the toilet for my tastes.

So, I do what I can do, when I can do it. I haven't been able to train the way I'd like -- or at all for that matter. But make no mistake. When I'm cleared to lift weights again, I'm getting my ass into the gym and making myself better and stronger than I was before.

Until then, though, I'll be taking it easy and hoping the Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Ca Sent le Coupe!