OK, here’s the rundown:
My uncle (who died 30 years ago this past week), carried around a football-sized “hernia.” At least that’s what the family called it. Having had his share of doctors in the 19-teens after a childhood bout of polio, which left his right leg as little more than a crutch, he never saw another doctor again as an adult.
As such, this GQ is more a request for informed speculation.
Anyway, I asked my father (my uncle never married, nor had children) how the uncle (they were brothers) had acquired it. He told me that it wasn’t any one incident, that it was all those years of pulling his right leg (which had been rendered largely useless by the polio) along. It had weakened the tissue, and caused the hernia, which had grown considerably over the years.
In my teens, I, along with my aunt (this uncle’s sister-in-law) did a lot of caretaking with this uncle, as the last year of his life his health seemed to take a turn for the worse–although I didn’t realize this until years later. As the result, I saw this hernia numerous times.
Now, Tucker-Babe’s stepfather recently had surgery to remove a softball-sized hydrocele. She wasn’t familiar with the condition, so I showed her some pictures on Google Images.
Holy Cow! That looked like what my uncle had!
Anyway, the question: The “hernia” “diagnosis” was not something rendered by a physician. It’s possible that it was a hydrocele, but, of course, we’ll never know.
Is it a well-known situation for hernias to arise in this manner, i.e., the stress of years of pulling along a gimpy leg?