My husband wrote this for me, for my Holiday BS series. 🙂
The Joy Of Sex Turkey Subs Appendectomies
The word joy is applicable to an experience I endured during the summer of 2013. The year was unusually warm for the area I live in. La Niña danced upon the jet stream; the sway of her beautiful dress generated hot air that swept the region but, mercifully, she cooled us with her flamenco fan. It was a great summer! One that made me feel good to be alive. It was under these conditions when a medical emergency took me from summer bliss, to a hospital bed, then to triumphant joy and exhilaration when that unexpected threat was overcome.
It looked slightly different as a regurgitated lawn ornament.
It all started with a Subway sub for lunch, my usual turkey on honey oat bread, lots of brown mustard. I had returned to work focused on my job when I felt some slight indigestion ~ an uneasiness that starts in the stomach and soars to your throat; you try hard to suppress it but, it keeps coming and coming. I drive for a living so yep, you guessed it, I’m forced to pull off to the side of the road; I jump out of the vehicle just in time to regurgitate lunch on a convenient front lawn. How embarrassing to be puking in public but, that’s the way the day went.
First conclusion: food poisoning.
I struggled terribly as I asked to be excused from work and began the long drive home in my personal vehicle. The pain was building in spite of getting rid of lunch so this began to alarm me. I stopped at a local hospital along the way and walked into the cathedral-like main building, stood in the middle of the hallway and thought to myself, This will pass. I don’t want to go through hours of costly evaluation just because of bad turkey. I walked out and proceeded home. The night was restless, a wicked pain in the mid section unrelenting, dry heaves kept me sleepless and concerned.
The next day it was worse so I was off to the hospital to find out what was happening. Lying in the emergency room bed they carted me off for x-rays and such, an exploratory venture into my inner being. The result was an enlarged appendix. The Doctor explained the strange set of circumstances I was operating under (literally) as I laid there doped on pain killers. Typically the appendix is about the size of one’s pinky finger. Mine had grown to the size of the Doctor’s forearm. OMG! They even have a special name for what they found: mucocele of the appendix.
The surgery was an outstanding success even though I spent a week in the hospital recovering. I’m so amazed – joyful – that I was able to make it through this ordeal without it turning for the worse. The Doctor said it could have burst within 48 hours. I would have been in the hospital for a month while they cleaned up my system, or worse – I could have died.
It is in the aftermath of avoiding life-threatening perils like this, that I experience JOY. Like dodging a bullet fired a point blank range, or being a sole survivor in a horrible crash, I was exhilarated. My body told me, “There is something wrong! Get to the hospital – before it gets worse!”
And I listened.
The result? I survived.
In that survival ~ overcoming an unexpected health hazard, fraught with uncertainty ~ I experienced joy: real genuine joy, followed by gratitude.
This year has been full of challenges. This adventure was no exception.
But hey! You got seven weeks of “vacation” out of the deal. 😀
Thank you for writing for me, Smotchy. I love you.
As a fellow survivor of a couple critical near-death medical emergencies, I am sorry you had to endure that experience and the worries that go with it. I am also full of joy that you listened to what your body was telling you and lived to make this wonderful blog post.
I really love this writing, it is clear as a bell to read and so artfully phrased. I enjoyed the way you set the scene. I hope you grace us with more guest posts in the future! Thanks for sharing yourself with us.
My brother had emergency gall bladder surgery on his vacation in Bermuda. He spent his whole vacation there in a hospital. I’ve had food poisoning twice, and kidney stones big enough for surgery once. Any time I’ve been put under I’ve wondered if I was going to wake up. My fear isn’t of being dead, it’s of the process of dying. I was off for 12 weeks. And my boss told me after 11 weeks that I only had one more week of FMLA. I had quite a bit more sick leave available, but I would be subject to discipline after one more week. What a prick, and not in a good way. So why should anyone save more than 480 hours of sick leave if they can’t use it? He didn’t have an answer for that. But there is joy when the Drs find a source of pain and can treat it. And I try to remember the positive things about people I know that have died. I hope others remember me that way.
Smotchy does not have a user ID, so these are his responses. (He’s standing over my shoulder speaking his responses while I type on his behalf. Just call me The Secretary. 😛 )
@kanienke: Thanks for your response and your concern. Us survivors need to stick together. You may very well see posts from me here again in the future.
(And now he rousts his typist, saying “Let me have the chair!”)
@wildoats1962: Ugh, a whole vacation shot down by a stay in the hospital. That’s terrible. FMLA, bosses, and life/death, that is a whole different pain in the stomach I prefer to avoid. Let’s toast to life and the things that make it joyful!
~ Smotch
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