How I Am Not Dead
by John Walker on Sep.19, 2006, under The Rest
I have exactly one less appendix.
I’m not supposed to be sitting up much, so briefly, I spent Saturday night with excruciating stomach ache, what I assumed to be trapped wind. NHS Direct, at 4am, assumed it to be stomach ache, but if it got worse to call my GP. It got worse, and the out of hours GP was at the local hospital. Which turns out to be quite good, as he refered me onto a surgeon after becoming suspicious of the silence in my bowels (aren’t we all?), and I was stripped to a gown, the most incredibly pretty doctor stuck her finger up my bum, and then I was whisked to surgery and had an inflamed, angry and ripe-to-explode appendix removed. Two nights of hateful boredom and nurses who I assume were hired wholesale from Morrison’s check-outs, and I’m back, with holes.
I’m a bit sore, and brilliantly, as a GP diagnosed this afternoon I has have my sciatic nerve pinched at the base of my spine, ensuring that it hurts down the front and the back. So I’m off to lie down and watch downloaded TV.
Anyone who wants to come visit me this week, so long as you’re someone who already knows where I live without means of stalking, is extremely welcome, as I shall die of concrete boredom probably by tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and if anyone has the West Wing on DVD and wants to drop it round for me, I’ll kiss them anywhere they ask (which is most likely to be on my own arm, I realise).
What have I learned from all this? Nothing. Victory!
Edit: If anyone readng this works at the RUH in Bath, could they email me? it’s for the best of worst reasons.
September 19th, 2006 on 15:45
Do they still let you keep your appendix nowadays? Preferably in a jar beside the bed, whereupon many a comedy mishap can occur.
And tsk too, for only deciding to try The West Wing once you’d seen Studio 60 and realised Sorkin’s writing genius. You were told. You were told.
Glad to hear you’re ok.
September 19th, 2006 on 15:58
Whinge whinge whinge.
September 19th, 2006 on 20:35
Do you want us to pretend sympathy or should we carry on treating you with the same amount of respect and love as always?
September 19th, 2006 on 20:35
What have they left inside?
September 19th, 2006 on 20:51
Gillen did this years ago. The New Inflamed Journalism. Pretty soon every kid with an internet connection and an appendix was popping their guts everywhere, each more annoying than the last. Get well soon! And preferably without using your exploding organs to define the opening paragraph of a review.
September 19th, 2006 on 22:09
Can I have the appendix? Not for witchcraft.
September 19th, 2006 on 22:26
You kept that quiet.
September 19th, 2006 on 23:17
Tsk, and what of those of us who have the west wing on DVD, live within drivving distance of you and only know where you live due to stalking?
September 20th, 2006 on 01:12
DaveT: Surely those people would right now be driving to the hospital to collect John’s appendix, and so wouldn’t be reading this?
September 20th, 2006 on 03:36
Why would anyone want a heavily diseased appendix?
September 20th, 2006 on 07:36
DaveT: Just in case.
September 20th, 2006 on 09:35
Don’t think you should invite any of the above to your flat for fear of your safety. You could clone an evil John with his diseased appendix – or a good one if you suspect the current one has already joined the dark side. No – of course not. But then he’d tell me to say that if already evil…
September 20th, 2006 on 12:02
You should try that Psychonauts. Or there’s a good game on the DS about a lawyer or something. I here they got good reviews.
September 20th, 2006 on 12:20
Sorry, forgot earlier – Get well soon, John. And, while I think of it, now could be the time to write that Reader’s Digest article you’ve always wanted to: ‘I am John’s inflamed appendix’.
September 20th, 2006 on 17:37
John cannot die!
September 20th, 2006 on 20:01
For Ste:
This is genuinely the intro to the main review in the next They’re Back:
“My arch nemesis, Infection Man, has been victorious. The source of all my powers, my appendix, was removed this week. And as such, at least until another vestigial organ receives a freak overdose of nuclear radiation during a dangerous mishap on the way to the shops, my superhero days are over. Crippled as I am, propped up and full of operation wounds and drugs, it is something of a relief that there is always City of Heroes.”
September 20th, 2006 on 20:11
Welcome to the club. I had mine out when I sixteen. For years afterwards every now and thing a back speck would appear at the edge of the scar. The last time was about two years ago. The specks were not seriously lost blackhead zits but after small tug always turned out to be undissolved stitches, the longest of which was about 0.5mm. I hope they remembered to take all yours out.
September 21st, 2006 on 09:38
Oh my goodness! Are you OK? I have a cold…
September 21st, 2006 on 10:39
Get well soon, John.
September 22nd, 2006 on 11:45
Glad your not dead John :D