Misadventures in Public Healthcare, Part III: Navel Warfare

Back in 2023 I was taking a shower when I noticed a small, hard wart on my belly button. I didn't think much of it at first - to concern myself with every little oddity on my ageing body would be inviting madness.

It's always fun to try and google them though.

As time went on it became more annoying, though. I started to squeeze and pick the damn thing whenever I was sitting in the sauna, which only made it more irritated and rough. I hoped it would eventually just go away on its own, but as weeks passed and the issue remained, I finally went to see a doctor in the hopes of having it removed.

The doctor concluded that it was indeed a wart or something, but instead of plucking it out he gave me a prescription for an ointment that set me back 40 euros. I was skeptical, but nevertheless started applying the medicine as instructed, to precisely no effect whatsoever.

After some time I called another doctor and asked if this time they could just remove the wart. I also shared my creeping suspicion that it might have something to do with a surgery I had many years ago, when I was treated for umbilical hernia. Could there be an old stitch or something trying to come out?

In a few days I was lying on a bench and the doctor pulled out a tool that looked like a miniature apple peeler, applied a little anesthetic spray on my belly button and got to work. After she was done, she told me that there indeed was something underneath that looked like a black string. She wasn't going to touch it though - not before knowing what it is and why it's there.

Perhaps a week later I again went to a different doctor. The black string was clearly visible now as it was poking out of my navel. This doctor was more brave than the last one; he just pulled the string out a little and cut it off. As the area around the string looked inflamed, he also prescribed me some antibiotics.

In the following months, more string started to protrude out and when it did, I took matters into my own hands and cut it off with nail clippers. The hole left by the removal of the wart wouldn't heal though. Moreover, now it had started to ooze a liquid which I thought was pus. I became a regular at the local pharmacy, constantly buying more bandages and medicine. I kept calling the doctors also, who prescribed me three different antibiotics with the dosage getting stronger each time. But they were of no help. 

The liquid that was coming out smelled like hell. No matter how much I washed my belly and changed the bandages, I was constantly stinking like an unwashed walking penis. I started to avoid live interactions with people because of it, and feeling more than a little depressed.

One day my daughter came to visit and listened to my problems. She instantly realized it wasn't pus that was oozing out. "It's tissue fluid" she said. "I had the same thing happen with my ear piercing. It's your body trying to get rid of a foreign object". And she was right. Why was my daughter telling me this though, instead of any of the doctors? By the time I had taken so many antibiotics for so long, that I was worried they would never work on me again.

The next morning I called the doctor's office again. I wasn't using a very nice tone this time - it had been a full year since I discovered the wart. After listening to my rant, the receptionist instructed me to call a specific private doctor who had previously worked as a gastrosurgeon. After examining my belly button and plucking out a whole bunch of old stitches, he told me that they were indeed remnants of my old hernia operation; it turns out that soluble stitches won't always dissolve. Nine years after the operation, my body had now decided to get rid of them.

After that things finally started to move forward. I was appointed to the surgeon who had performed my original hernia operation. There wasn't much left of my belly button at this point: The way the hernial opening had been fixed was with a "dartboard plug" as she called it, and it was now visible on the surface of my skin.

Two days later I was on the operating table. The plug was removed (along with what was left of my belly button) and replaced with a mesh that now keeps my guts on the inside.