My Appendix and Me; a tragic love story

I’m missing an organ…well I wouldn’t say I’m missing it (thank you, I’ll be here all week, tip your waitress). For 24 years my appendix was a fully functioning member of the Nathan’s body family, and then it decided to pursue other opportunities. It was completely unexpected. I mean sure, we had our ups and downs, but what relationship doesn’t? It’s true my appendix never really did anything for me, he was more or less a stowaway, but sometimes late at night I wish we were still together. Not only do I miss the way he would snuggle against my (anatomy), but my life’s become much more complicated since we went our separate ways. This, this is our story.

ACT I: The Beginning of the End:

It all started so innocently. The girlfriend and I were an enjoying an afternoon out on the town when I started to get a stomachache, nothing special. A couple hours later it was worse, but I had promised my lady an elegant dinner (a.k.a. California Pizza Kitchen) and I wasn’t going to back down. Over the course of our culinary delight the pain had progressed to “stitch in your side after running” proportions, and I had to admit I was feeling sick. I went home, laid on the couch, and figured some alka-seltzer and 7-UP would do the job. It didn’t. The pain got sharper, and by midnight it felt like an angry dwarf was stabbing me with a pencil. Finally, I had no choice; I was headed to the hospital. I put on some sweatpants, woke up the girlfriend, and we were off. By the way, if you ever see me outside my apartment in sweatpants, that means I’m in trouble. Please, alert the proper authorities.

ACT II: In Which Our Differences Become Irreconcilable

I live in West Hollywood, which means I checked into the Max Factor wing of Cedar Sinai hospital. It was good to know that even though I might die, Max Factor would ensure the proper hue of blush would be applied to my still warm corpse. Waiting with us in the emergency room was a guy in a silk shirt who had busted his hand in a bar fight, accompanied by his hyperventilating girlfriend. “But look,” she’d beg the nurse” he’s bleeding! He’s gonna die!” I prayed the nurse would shove some Valium down her throat so we could all enjoy the fluorescent/antiseptic ambience of the waiting room in peace. After a brief exam I was shown to my room, or at least a gurney in the corner of the room, and told to wait. A doctor telling you to wait is like Hitler telling Stalin he won’t invade; deep down you know things are going to end horribly, but there’s nothing you can do but hang on and hope for the best.
(Let me pause to remind you that I’m telling you this in the spirit of cooperation. If a metaphorical angry dwarf starts stabbing you in the side with a pencil, this info is going to come in handy. If a literal angry dwarf starts stabbing you with a pencil, you’re out of luck. I doubt even the police can help you. Now, back to the hospital).
I had three major problems with the examination/surgery process:
1)The Happy Face Pain Scale – A nurse will ask you to rate your pain, from 1 to 10, and show you an accompanying range of sad/happy faces, just in cause you’re numerically illiterate. Simple right? No. They say “On a scale of one to ten, one being nothing and ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how bad is it?” Well, I have a pretty good imagination. My side hurt, but I’d imagine being slowly burned alive would be considerably worse, and getting shot in the hand’s probably not pleasant…by the time I was done imagining I had to rate my appendix a five. Big mistake, a five gets you ignored. I should have acted like the hyperventilating girlfriend in the waiting room; “Ten, Jesus Christ on a bicycle it’s a ten! Everything’s getting dark…momma I feel so cold.” Then maybe I wouldn’t have had to wait another eight hours before surgery.
2) The Impossible Task – The nurse makes it very clear that food and liquids are forbidden, then gives you a cup to pee in. I’ll give you a second to think about that. It’s just not gonna happen, it’s a simple input-output problem. Then the nurse glares at you and your empty cup like you’re holding out on her. Well maybe if you’d give me some goddamn water, we could talk business.
3) Um, Possibly, Maybe – The truth is no one knows why your appendix bursts, and more importantly if your appendix is the problem until they open you up.
The doctors will say, “Well, here’s the deal. It could be your appendix, in which case we’ll just cut it out. Or maybe it’s not, in which case we’ll spin a giant wheel, see which organ it points to, and cut that out. Ok? Just sign here, and here, and here.” An appendectomy forces you to give the green light to doctors who openly admit that they have no idea what’s going on. Oh, and if they don’t do anything you’ll die. Fantastic. This is really working out well for me.
Needless to say the surgery went fine and my appendix got the heck out of dodge. I’d go into more detail, but I was in a morphine haze for the next two days. For more details, check with the saintly girlfriend. She spent that time sleeping in chairs, dealing with a constantly rotating stream of Philippina nurses, and making sure my hospital gown didn’t reveal anything too sultry.

Act III: The Aftermath

They handed me the bill on the way out of the Versace recovery center. I had turned down a delicious breakfast of orange juice concentrate and a buttered roll, so factoring in those savings, the bill came out to a svelte $18,000 (or as I preferred to think about it, a million bazillion dollars). There was literally no way I could pay it. Unless I sold my organs on the black market, that would be ironic. Then, like a knight in shining armor, lung cancer came to my rescue. That’s right, lung cancer is my new best friend. About five years ago the State of California lead a class action lawsuit against Phillip Morris, everyone’s favorite maker of cigarettes and macaroni and cheese. Phillip Morris lost (those damn activist judges!) and was ordered to pay millions into a fund to cover healthcare costs for state residents. The bureaucracy involved in applying is a special circle of hell, but after four months of paperwork, Phillip Morris picked up the tab. God bless em. I went straight to the corner store and bought a pack, saluted, and threw the cigarettes in the trash. It’s times like these that I’m reminded of the words of Geronimo, the famous Indian warrior: “America is a crazy person.”
I wonder where my appendix is now. I like to think it made it out to Mexico, found a little resort town, started a carpentry business, and leads a simple happy life. If you’re ever traveling and see him, do me a favor; tell him I miss him, but I’m fine without him. I got the scars to prove it.