JB 2
One cold and windy night in December of 2003, while my family was busy putting their presents to each other under the Christmas tree, I was missing out on the festivities due to the excruciating pain in my abdomen that would not seem to go away. For the entire previous day I had been experiencing some mild discomfort but thought nothing of it because people get stomachaches all the time. This was different. This couldn’t be described as an “ache” of the stomach. It felt like I had been impregnated by one of the giant scorpions from Aliens, and to say the least, it was not pleasant. By this point my constant moaning and complaining had finally attracted the attention of my Mother, and she was starting to get worried. I don’t think I would have ended up going to the hospital that fateful Christmas Eve’s eve if it had not been for a phone call from my aunt to wish our family a Merry Christmas. My aunt, who is a nurse, was talking to my mom when the subject of my extreme discomfort came up. My Mom told her my symptoms and she immediately recommended that we go to the hospital to have me checked for appendicitis. Between me and my parents I was the most hesitant to be driven to the hospital two nights before the best day of the year for what would later turn out to be the first surgical operation of my life. However, it soon became clear to me that a trip to the hospital might be in order when my aunt gave my Mom a home appendicitis test that involved standing on one foot and trying to touch the floor. As soon as I could drag myself to the car after the blinding pain that ensued during the borderline torturous home test we were on our way to Shady Grove Memorial Hospital to get my stomach sliced open… by a professional. Looking back on it, surgery was one of the coolest experiences of my life so far. Having never experienced being under anesthesia I had no idea what to expect. One minute I was in my hospital gown with my parents being told to count backwards from ten with a gas mask on and in the blink of an eye I was awake in the hospital recovery room. The sensation of losing a chunk of time like that is hard to explain, except that it is extremely disorienting. I actually asked my Dad when I was going into the operating room when he simply pointed to the bandages on the right side of my belly button and told me that everything was already taken care of and there was nothing else to worry about. That night I had to spend in the hospital, which wasn’t bad because a nurse came around with some stuffed animals for the children in the pediatric ward because many of the children there would be missing out on Christmas altogether. I was released from the hospital around 2p.m. on Christmas Eve and got to spend that night relaxing and recovering from my ordeal with my cousins, grandparents, siblings and parents. All in all, the story of how I got the scar on my abdomen is a pretty good memory for me, which may sound strange to some people but to understand you might just have to experience it yourself someday.