“Pain don’t hurt.”  These words were so eloquently delivered by Patrick Swayze in the extraordinarily moving and critically acclaimed 1989 film, Road House.

Pain don’t hurt?  Like hell it doesn’t.  Having two hernias residing in your body like unruly tenants you are having a hell of a time trying to evict.

These hernias have names.  One is umbilical hernia named Quato and the other, Action Park is an inguinal. Quato is affectionately named after a character co-starring in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger called Total Recall.  It was equally as riveting as Road House . Quato stole the show.  Action Park is named after a notoriously dangerous water park in New Jersey.  If you left the park without some bloodshed or a serious injury, the park employees weren’t doing their job properly.  They made it as dangerous as possible.

Now, my Quato hernia, much like his character in the movie, is simply annoying and sometimes, depending on his positioning, also can find a way to be quite painful. I never thought I’d to refer to a hernia as being pretentious, but this one qualifies. In the movie, while cleverly busting through the human carrying him, Quatto was disturbingly philosophical regarding the rights and wrongs of the world,  When he’d finish spewing his drunken words from his bleeding mouth, he’d slink back into his habita.That would be the man’s stomach.

Action Park is a whole different story.  Weighing in at almost three pounds, he’s been squatting along with his friends, my intestines,  in the most pliable location of my body which I don’t wish to share.

Action Park was considered to be a water park, so of course, there were drownings in its action wave pool where many of the park thrill seekers, unlike the Northwest Passage, would find.  And, even though many of them couldn’t swim, they would venture into the four feet deep pool, only to be thrashed by an eight foot wave.  When I roll over at night, I feel this great rush of blood in my mid-section, thus causing midnight profanity and even guttural shrieks of pain similar to those heard from the wild man of Squeamish County, West Virginia.

Just speaking with my brother, one of his employees has six, yes six hernias.  He is far beyond what I have tried to describe. Forgive me for complaining and say a prayer for him.

Pain does indeed hurt.