Two Questions I Can't Ask

I found out yesterday, much to my shock and dismay, that my best friend is having surgery today! He mentioned, for the first time, that he's been back and forth to his doctor's office a lot over the last two weeks.

HUH? WHAT?

He has diabetes and I was worried that this medical crisis had to do with the condition he's been managing with so much success. He says "no," that this trip to the hospital is an outpatient procedure to repair a hernia.

He will not say any more about it. I am assuming that he has been in quite a bit of pain for at least two weeks, but instead he wants to talk about the money he and his wife raised with the fundraiser they held in their backyard. It was a chili cookoff,  60 people attended, and they made more than $8,000 for their daughter's ballet school. Impressive, yes, BUT HE'S IN PAIN AND HE'S HAVING SURGERY!

So now I am assuming there is something about this hernia that embarrasses him. I told him I worry whenever someone approaches him with a scalpel and removes anything, anything at all. He reassured me that it's laparascopic, nothing major, and nothing to worry about.

And how is he paying for this? I've read that the average cost for this procedure is about $7,000. He's been unemployed for 15 months. Is he still on COBRA? Has his millionaire father-in-law been supporting the family? I can't ask. The money relationship with father-in-law has always been fraught with tension and danger and I simply can't go there. I can't ask him if he's taking money from the man he once believed was trying to buy his family.

It makes me sad, because I miss the days when we could talk to one another about anything. If he's in pain -- physical or psychic -- he can always tell me.