Thoughts on the vermiform process*
*PLEASE NOTE: Irony is used in this post. DO NOT use information here as expert medical advice! See comments.
I have been without my appendix for an entire year now. I really haven’t missed it. In fact, if anyone reading this still has their appendix, I heartily recommend that you contact your health care professional and have the oversight rectified immediately.
At the end of last June I flew from Trieste to Warsaw, where Magda picked me up and we drove on to Toruń. There she had been packing her stuff for the big move to Slovenia. Just the day before we were supposed to get on the road for the long drive south, though, something funny happened in my gut.
If you have your appendix, that means that you have never experienced the joys of acute appendicitis. This is something I recommend avoiding. Go have it removed now, before it’s too late. Is there some reason you’re clinging on to something useless inside you called your “vermiform process”, for chrissake?
I spent Sunday afternoon in an increasingly question-mark-shaped posture, curling myself tighter and tighter around the pain zone (which I now know is called “McBurney’s point“). At times I thrashed. At first I thought it was just terrible indigestion, but as the afternoon wore on I became more and more concerned that it was something serious. The pain combines elements of sharpness, as I imagine a knife in the gut would feel; extreme gastro-intestinal discomfort, the vomit-or shit-my-pants-or-maybe-both feeling of food poisoning; and FIRE. I wished myself unborn. When I couldn’t stand up unassisted, Magda took me to the emergency room. I was slightly relieved when the doctor said that it was my appendix and that it would have to come out “immediately.” When you have acute appendicitis, there’s no time like “immediately.” “Immediately” feels way too late. Believe me. Stop what you’re doing and go have it out.
I woke up with stainless steel staples in my belly and lots of lovely drugs in my blood. Also a distended bladder, which Magda helped me deal with. We still treasure that as an intimate moment. I never loved her more than at that time. And during most of the following days, which I spent in a druggy haze, unable to move my upper body, reading “The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories”. The hospital was quite nice, and the stories were very polite and helpful. Magda visited constantly, ran roughshod over the visiting hours, and lobbied relentlessly to get me released so that we could begin our drive south.
Though the appendectomy was splendid, the healing up of the gaping, pus-y wound was less so. They recommend against driving 1,000 km with fresh staples in your stomach, no matter how far you recline. I couldn’t swim until very late in the summer, what with the staples and the open abdominal wound and all. Now I have an unsightly scar that looks like a miniature ass-crack, but no appendix behind it. They’re overrated. I won’t socialize with people who still have their appendices. I’m trying to get Magda and Adam to have theirs out ASAP. Get rid of yours. Do it now.
Now if I could only do something about these tonsils…
my comment is quite long. it is
here
Comment by itn@ — Thursday 30 June 05 @ 10.27 MDT+2.00
The above comment is in the form of a blog entry that’s well worth reading. It’s a refutation of my very public entreaties to have your appendix removed before it’s necessary.
I do not believe that doctors commonly perform preemptive surgery like this. I think they would be alarmed if you made such a request. My urgings were not made in seriousness. I hope that no one considers http://www.isoglossia.com a credible source of expert medical opinion. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to point this out, itn@.
Comment by sgazzetti — Thursday 30 June 05 @ 17.58 MDT+2.00
DAMN! I just went and took out my appendix, and now you tell me! I thought this was a credible site for medical information! You tease! (you flirt, you shine all the buttons on your green shirt…)
Comment by jdog — Thursday 30 June 05 @ 20.36 MDT+2.00
Calm down, jdog. Like a vasectomy, the procedure can usually be reversed. You can even have mine, if you want it. I’m not using it. My appendix, I mean, not my vas deferens. You can’t have that.
Comment by sgazzetti — Friday 1 July 05 @ 11.36 MDT+2.00
Now if I could only do something about these tonsils…
At your service: self-tonsillectomy. (There’s also a lead here on instructions for auto-trepanning, should that prove necessary.)
Comment by Elsa — Saturday 9 July 05 @ 15.12 MDT+2.00