Andrew’s overlooked hernia caused years of pain that better review could’ve prevented.

When Andrew first arrived at the emergency room, he was doubled over in pain. He hadn’t been able to stand upright all day. What he thought might be a stomach bug or muscle strain turned out to be something far more serious.

He waited for hours before anyone took him back for scans. It was only when someone finally noticed blood that things accelerated. “All of a sudden, three or four doctors and nurses ran to me, basically sat me down on a gurney, and gave me a shot of some heavy-duty painkillers,” Andrew recalls. “Then they told me it was likely I had endocarditis.”

That moment marked the beginning of a long and difficult journey. It included weeks in the hospital, open-heart surgery, and a recovery that reshaped his life. While that emergency uncovered a life-threatening problem that required immediate treatment, it also led to a scan that quietly documented something else in his chart. At the time, it didn’t seem urgent but years later, that overlooked detail would come back with consequences just as serious.‍

A Life Saved, but a Detail Left Unchecked

‍Andrew had never heard of endocarditis before. “They explained I could die from it, that I was very close to dying. But at the time, I didn’t really grasp it,” he says.

The infection had reached his heart and destroyed his aortic valve. High-dose antibiotics weren’t enough. Within weeks, Andrew underwent open-heart surgery. It was the day after Christmas. “That experience was terrible,” he says. “The surgery was painful, and recovering from it was just as hard. I had to see a cardiologist weekly for months.”

He had to stop working during that time. His daughter, who lives with her mother during the week, could only visit occasionally while he recovered. “I wasn’t able to care for her. I wasn’t able to work for a good eight or nine months,” he says. Family members stepped in to help, bringing food, running errands, and caring for his daughter when needed. “Everyone was as helpful as they could be.”

During his recovery, Andrew turned to the things that had always brought him comfort. He played video games for hours and filled the room with music. “The whole time I was stuck in bed, that’s what got me through it,” he says. “Gaming helped me escape. Music kept me from falling into a darker place.”

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He eventually returned to his freelance design work, creating graphics and logos for video games and apps. He began exercising and focusing more on his health. He kept up with his daily blood thinners to protect his new heart valve and began to find stability again.

But while his care team had saved his life, they hadn’t fully connected the dots on another piece of his health puzzle. During the scans for his heart condition, a small hiatal hernia was noted in his report. Hiatal hernias are common, often harmless, and usually don’t need surgery if they don’t cause problems. At the time, Andrew had no related symptoms, so there was no clear reason to operate. But no one explained it to him and no one revisited it when his health began to change.

Years of Frustration, One Missed Connection

Around the same time as his heart surgery, Andrew began having severe heartburn. “I was vomiting daily, sometimes multiple times a day,” he says. “It went on for three or four years.”

He brought it up with his doctors. The response was always the same. “They gave me antacids and told me I’d be fine,” he recalls. Meanwhile, the vomiting continued. He lost weight. His teeth began to wear down from years of stomach acid. “My teeth are destroyed now. Every time I threw up, it made it worse,” he says.

What no one did was go back through his chart and look for a cause. A hiatal hernia is a known risk factor for GERD and persistent reflux. If his team had connected his worsening symptoms to the earlier scan finding, they might have recognized sooner that the hernia could be making his reflux worse and that fixing it might stop the vomiting.

The turning point finally came during another scan years later, when a new doctor again noted the hiatal hernia. This time, they recommended surgical repair. Andrew looked back through his records and saw it clearly: the hernia had been documented all along.

“They said it was tiny and not a big deal, but it was clearly written in the scan report. No one ever told me,” he says. “If they’d explained it back then, maybe they would have figured out what was causing all my vomiting.”

He had surgery to repair the hernia in September 2024. The results were immediate. “After the surgery, I knew right away. I didn’t have that issue anymore,” he says.

A Different Kind of Recovery

‍‍The frustration Andrew carries is not that the hernia was missed. It was there, and it wasn’t necessarily wrong to leave it alone at first. What troubles him is that no one connected it to the severe reflux that followed or revisited it when his symptoms became life-changing. “They should have looked back at my chart,” he says. “They should have checked what was already there and thought about whether it was related.”

Years of daily vomiting, weight loss, and dental damage could have been avoided with a more complete review and a simple conversation.

“If they’d fixed it when my problems started, everything would have been a lot different,” he says. “I wouldn’t have gone through all that vomiting. My teeth would still be okay.”
Today, Andrew is focused on staying healthy. He works remotely as a graphic designer, mostly for small gaming projects. On weekends, he spends time with his daughter, who visits regularly. He still plays role-playing games to relax and lets music shape the rhythm of his day.

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He has also become more selective about the care he receives. “I look for doctors who tell me straight up what’s going on. No sugarcoating,” he says. “Someone who talks to me in a way I can understand and doesn’t leave anything out.”

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