So a friend recently had her appendix removed (get well soon!) and it made me remember my own chapter of The Appendectomy Chronicles. Back in summer of ’99 while everyone was trying to determine what level of offense they should take to Jar Jar Binks, I had some friends over for my 19th birthday. We had burgers and watched my $80 VHS copy of “Meet the Feebles” (this was before it was affordable on DVD, ya jerks). Near the end of the movie my stomach starting hurting and I had to ask everyone to leave. A hypochondriac, I was convinced I had appendicitis, and tried to coerce my family members into talking me off the ledge and convincing me that I did not, in fact, have appendicitis. It did not work. (This was timely, as one of my birthday presents that year was a binder, made by my family, which poked fun at all of my anxieties. Ha. Ha. Ha). My stomach hurt more. My father grew obsessed with the idea that someone had brought over some liquor for my birthday and that I had taken a swig of it and was now having a bad reaction. I am sad to report that I did nothing so cool, though to this day he still overestimates me and suspects I was drinking. By dawn, I was in so much pain that I literally crawled into my parents’ bed. My dad finally drove me to the ER. Oddly enough, a woman who lived next door to us went to the hospital at the exact same time—we actually followed her family’s car there—and she also had appendicitis. I still think she got the idea from me, but whatever. The doctors told me they had to operate immediately. I refused to sign any papers until I could speak with the anesthesiologist and make him promise me he’d do everything in his power to prevent me from throwing up while I was recovering. (I have a crippling fear of vomiting. This issue was covered in the binder. Ha. Ha. Ha.). The surgery went fine and I did not throw up. Dr. Brabbee was my surgeon and I later found out he’s poked around the insides of a few different people that I know. Um. Anyway, I spent about a week on the basement couch, sore and with an on and off fever. I watched reruns of Maude and St. Elsewhere, listened to Joy Division and read HP Lovecraft (to help cheer me up). I tried to go to someone’s graduation party and my fever came back so I went home and watched Waking Ned Devine. I remember at one point my pain meds ran out and whenever people came down into the basement to talk to me, I threw stuff at them. (Uhhh, sorry about that, guys). Years later, I was working at the Hi-Pointe behind the concessions counter and I overheard two of our customers saying they were meeting a Dr. Brabbee in the auditorium. “Hey, he took out my appendix! Tell him I said hi. Do you want butter on your popcorn?” They looked at me like I was crazy. The point of this is that I did not throw up. Also I never have to worry about getting appendicitis again, so I can take that page out of the binder. I can think of a handful of FB friends who were there for parts of this story so I hope some of you read this.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:52:02 +0000
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