MUMBAI: Actor Amitabh Bachchan underwent a hernia surgery at SevenHills Hospital in Marol on Saturday. After the operation, he has been doing well, going by the tweets posted by his son, Abhishek, and later, the actor himself.A nagging pain in the abdomen had prompted Bachchan to visit the hospital when doctors told him that surgical intervention was inevitable.
Though the hospital management and the Bachchan family remained tight-lipped about the actor's medical condition, TOI learnt from a source that he was operated upon for bilateral inguinal hernia. It's a condition of protrusion of soft tissue through a weak spot in the abdominal wall, causing pain and bulge in some cases.
Bachchan was wheeled into the operation theatre at 9am for his fourth surgery. Though doctors said it was a "minor" operation, it lasted for nearly four hours. Soon after, Abhishek tweeted, "Thank you all for your wishes and prayers. The surgery went off well and dad is now in the resting room". Later, he told reporters doctors had kept him under observation for 24 hours. "He is fine and is walking inside the room."
At night, Bachchan himself was back on the micro-blogging site, posting: "Back ..!! Thank you for your prayers.. your love and wishes never fail.. indebted for life..." "Took almost 5 hrs on the OT, but could feel the concern and wishes of the TwFmXt every minute .. ." "Took long because 2 surgeries had to be done on either side ..yes there is pain, but nothing good in life ever achieved without it!" The actor, who is admitted to a suit on the fifth floor of the hospital, had a few visitors. Among them was producer Bunty Walia. "I asked him how he was feeling and he said he was better," Walia said.
The hospital did not comment on when Big B was likely to go home. But experts said inguinal hernia surgeries were not too complicated and recovery was likely to be fast. "Patients go home in a day or two. Those who are operated laparoscopically leave earlier," a doctor told TOI. But Bachchan's doctors decided against laparoscopy. Inguinal hernias develop from weakness or tear in the wall of the lower abdomen or groin. For Big B, the near-fatal intestinal injury he suffered during Coolie's filming in 1982 could be the reason behind it.
